English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

David Simmonds Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Despite the Minister’s centralising zeal, I detect a slight weariness on her part as we once again go toe to toe on Lords amendments. It remains the position of the Opposition that the Government are bringing forward in this Bill overall a set of centralising measures that are fundamentally about extending control from Whitehall into our town halls. Those measures come from a Government who have a record of imposing additional cost and responsibilities on our local authorities, as we hear continually from local government leaders.

It is welcome to hear from the Minister that there has been additional recognition from the Government of the differences that exist in our rural and coastal communities—I do have some coastline in my constituency, but I do not think Ruislip lido was what we had in mind when making the argument. It is clear that the needs of our rural and coastal communities, and the potential that they offer, are often different from what we see in urban and suburban areas, so we will not be pushing for a further vote on the matter of extending the recognition of rural affairs.

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[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

The point that my hon. Friend is making is a very accurate description of what is happening in my local area of Bexley, where developers are trying to argue that greenfield sites are now ripe for development because of the Government’s planning changes. Does he share my concern that the Government are continuing to try to barge those changes through this House, and that both Reform and Labour support the Government’s position on the grey belt, which will have a detrimental effect on our local community and our natural environment?

[David Simmonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People in Old Bexley and Sidcup—just like those in Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner and, indeed, in many of the constituencies that are represented by Conservative Members—are concerned about a Reform party that is championing tearing up the green belt across our capital in pursuit of housing targets, and about the ambiguity that has been created by the Government’s position on grey-belt land. That description seems to be applied to any site on which a developer can argue that housing could be delivered because it has had some previous use. That level of ambiguity is another one of the reasons why we are keen to make the very strong case for brownfield being enshrined as the priority, and for the Government to accept that case.

I will now turn briefly to the Lords amendments dealing with the leader and cabinet model of local government. To be clear, as an Opposition, we do not have a strong view about what governance arrangements town halls should choose. Many of us will have had experience under the committee system or under the leader and cabinet model, some with executive mayors. However, the reason why we intend to push the Government on this issue is that it once again represents their centralising tendency—a view in Whitehall that the Government know best what structures should be used. I happen to agree with Ministers that the leader and cabinet model is the most effective and efficient model, but it is not for us to tell locally elected officials and councillors what arrangements they should make.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way, and congratulate him on his efforts yesterday. I am sure we are both struggling to bob in the Chamber this afternoon.

I agree with the shadow Minister about the cabinet model for local councils. I am sure he agrees that one of the advantages of that model is that there are fewer meetings, which makes being a councillor more accessible for those who have jobs and childcare commitments and means that we do not just rely on councillors who are perhaps retired. On his point about the Government’s approach to local authorities, does he agree that one good thing that this Government have done is ensure multi-year funding for local councils? When I was a councillor in Harlow—I got my mention of Harlow in—it was a real challenge for the opposition to do its shadow budgets and for the administration to do its budgets.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

It would be interesting to know the timings of the shadow Minister’s marathon.

[David Simmonds]

Suffice it to say that I was significantly slower than the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince), whose outstanding efforts will, I am sure, leave him a little bit sore when bobbing today.

The hon. Member will know the benefits of an effective leader and cabinet model, because he has a good Conservative local authority led by Councillor Dan Swords, and the work of Councillor Dan Swords and his team has driven forward the improvements Harlow has been able to enjoy over many years.

[Chris Vince]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Simmonds]

I am going to make a little progress, if I may.

The key point is to ensure that our local authorities can set out their governance arrangements in a way that reflects the needs of their community. The Government have already accepted the argument that we need to ensure a degree of nuance in the Bill for rural and coastal communities, and this is another example of exactly that argument.

On parish governance, I know we do not all have parish councils in our local areas, but they are a significant feature of civic life across the country and many of them run important local facilities such as leisure centres and car parks. It is clearly important to ensure that their role is enshrined, especially at a time when this Government’s wider agenda of local government reorganisation is leading to a significant transfer of services to parish councils from districts due to be abolished, so it is welcome that the Government are moving forward on that.

On the final two groups of amendments we are debating this afternoon, the so-called agent of change principle is the idea that a new arrival in a community should bear the cost of consequent changes on its gaining planning consent: if somebody opens a new music venue or builds a new residential development, that should not be at the expense of existing and long-established uses. Many of us as constituency MPs have had experience of when, for example, a property developer creates a new residential development and seeks to close down an existing venue such as a local pub—I had an example to do with a bus garage—because they are concerned about the impact it would have. Clearly those established uses with prior consent need to have a degree of priority, and that has already found its way into law in Scotland. We believe that it is reasonable to recommend that the Government take this forward and ensure that those existing uses have sufficient protection in the Bill that they are not subject to the unfair impact of new and subsequent arrivals seeking to pass the costs of mitigating the consequences of their activity on to them.

Finally, Lords amendment 98 is about the Secretary of State’s powers on changes to strategic authorities. It was hotly contested as the Bill made its way through Committee that it contains chapters and chapters of new powers for the Secretary of State to direct mayors or combined authorities, which very much speaks to the point that this is centralising legislation. While it introduces a new layer of local government, it none the less results in central Government having significantly more powers to levy a precept, to create a new housing development, to create zoning to ensure development takes place, and to bring together groups of local authorities and assume some of their responsibilities. All of those now fall much more strongly within the purview of the Secretary of State issuing directions from Whitehall about how things should happen locally.

It remains the Opposition’s position that, as supporters of and believers in devolution, we should not simply pay lip service to it in the title of the Bill, but ensure that those measures have the consent and support of the locally elected politicians whose mandate gives them the power to make those decisions on behalf of their community. We remain determined to push ahead in favour of that principle of consent and ensure that local communities continue to have champions who speak up for them in this Chamber.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)]

In my comments, I will address the agent of change principle. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on music, and this has long been on our agenda. The shadow Minister got the gist of this right when saying that it is about existing or long-standing venues—music venues and nightclubs, in particular—having to bat back legal challenges from residents of any new build residential property, but primarily apartments. We have had examples of cases, such as Alphabet and the Moth club, where there have been legal costs of £50,000 or more from having to take on new developments that are challenging their ongoing operations.

I encountered a case of this kind in my constituency, which we had to fight in the planning committee. An organisation called Music and Arts Production provides music and arts education in its building for young people who have been excluded from school and who would otherwise become NEET—not in education, employment or training—but who are thus kept within the education system. One of its main sources of funding is Cosmic Slop, an event that raises a significant amount on Saturday nights.

There was to be heavy residential development in the area in the form of a new block of flats in Mabgate, opposite the MAP building. The problem was that there would be no sound protection or mitigation; in its local plan, Leeds had not mapped music venues or nightclubs. I received thousands of emails about the planning application from as far away as New York. We had to have significant discussions with the planning department and councillors to ensure that the necessary stipulations were made for noise reduction, and to ensure that the new residents could not, in effect, close down the club night, because if that happened MAP would have to close as well, and all those young people would become NEET.

I sympathise with the Ministers dealing with this matter, because throughout the process the national planning policy framework, on a non-statutory basis, has forced local authorities to take such action. I think we should consider ways of addressing this issue through secondary legislation and the local planning process, because at present neither the Bill nor the NPPF protects venues adequately. I know that, like mine, the Minister’s constituency contains many music venues and nightclubs, and she obviously cares deeply about such venues. I hope she will reassure me that the Government will look at the agent of change principle and ensure that, both locally and nationally, the relevant protections are available so that further pressures are not put on those venues. Nightclubs in particular are already suffering as a result of the business rates increases and other recent cost pressures, and the additional costs of having to fight developers will eventually push them out of existence.

Representation of the People Bill (Ninth sitting)

David Simmonds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Chowns]

I will speak very briefly in support of the three amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Guildford, which highlight really important issues. It seems extraordinary, really, that we have such inequality between England, Wales and Scotland in relation to support for disabled candidates. Clearly, with such huge levels of under-representation of disabled people in our politics, it is imperative that support is put in place to try to rectify that. I fully support the call for the reinstatement of the access to elected office fund.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I appreciate that the main focus of these amendments has been around disability. However, I was proud of the work that my party did in Government to try to improve the diversity of candidates, particularly in local elections.

Has the hon. Member given any consideration to the broader concept of diversity in terms of candidates? We know that disability can present some specific challenges, but one of the issues for political parties is about engaging those much wider communities, from which sometimes very few people feel willing to put themselves forward as candidates. Does she have a view about that that she would like to share with the Committee?

[Dr Chowns]

I absolutely do—indeed, that is what the next two amendments are specifically about. That clearly should be the next step; the provision was put in place in the Equality Act, so it is just about commencing something already there under section 106 that would apply to reporting on diversity with a range of protected characteristics, not just in relation to disability.

I completely agree that our politics should be representative of our population as a whole; we should all be challenging ourselves constantly, as individuals and as parties, to ensure that we are doing everything possible to address under-representation of certain groups. The lack of representation of women is particularly brought into focus by the fact that it is now nearly 100 years since the franchise was fully extended, yet women are still seriously under-represented in this House—and even more under-represented in local politics nationally. But there are many other dimensions of under-representation; while the first amendment relates specifically to support for disabled candidates, the next two amendments relate to that much wider spectrum. That is crucially important.

[Samantha Dixon]

New clause 31 would require the Electoral Commission to establish a fund to provide financial assistance to disabled candidates standing for election in England. It is the Government’s ambition to see more disabled people in public office, and we know that some disabled people still face additional financial barriers when contesting elected office. To address that, we are currently developing a new fund to support disabled election candidates with the disability-related extra costs they can experience, to enable participation on an equal basis.

We put the lived experience of disabled people and lessons learned from previous funds at the heart of our work to develop that new fund. We have engaged with a wide range of stakeholders, including MPs and disabled local councillors. We have heard how ensuring ongoing support is important to providing the reassurance people need to plan for the long term, as it can take a number of attempts to get elected. The Government are able to provide that type of support without this amendment, as they have done in the past, with the access to elected office fund from 2012 to 2015 and the EnAble fund from 2018 to 2020.

As part of our work to develop the new fund, we are considering how design elements might better support longevity, retaining the flexibility needed to ensure that the fund provided is fit for purpose. Given the ongoing work that the Government are doing in this area to establish a fund, I gently ask the hon. Lady not to press the new clause.

I now turn to new clause 34. The Government are committed to improving representation in politics. We encourage increased diversity in Government and political candidates, and have taken action to address that. Section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 is an uncommenced provision that would require registered political parties to publish anonymised data about the diversity of their candidate selections, in accordance with regulations. The Government are committed to commencing section 106 of the Equality Act. However, careful consideration needs to be given to how it might be implemented, the supporting regulations and whether any phasing might be needed in implementation. Officials will consult with stakeholders, including political parties, in due course.

[David Simmonds]

One of the issues that this proposal creates is that if we are seeking to assess the accessibility of politics for candidates from a range of backgrounds, we need to know not only about those who make it through and are nominated as candidates, but about the broader range of the public from whom those candidates are drawn. It is fairly standard, in terms of equalities impact, to understand from that data who is not making it through that process.

Has the Minister given any consideration to how that concern might be addressed, beyond simply gathering the data? That may not tell us who was simply not able to make it through the process and get to the point of being nominated as a candidate in the elections covered by section 106.

[Samantha Dixon]

The hon. Gentleman highlights exactly why further consultation is needed. This is a complex issue, and it needs to be discussed with all the major and minor political parties to explore how candidates are encouraged to come forward and the ways in which we can support political parties to become more diverse. I hope he accepts that response.

I turn to new clause 35. The Government really are committed to better representation, and we have taken a variety of actions to address that. As I have mentioned, section 106 is uncommenced, and we are committed to commencing it with careful consideration and at the appropriate time. I therefore ask the Committee to reject the new clauses, as that process is already in progress.

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[Paul Holmes]

The Minister is absolutely right. I am a democrat. I believe that every hon. Member on the Committee has the backing of their constituents, albeit not by a margin that the Liberal Democrats, Greens, or other parties, might favour because they want to change the voting system. Each and every member of the Committee won more votes than each of their competitors. That is an act of trust: our constituents elected us under the system that was provided to them. That is the greatest measure of trust that can be portrayed in a result: securing a number of votes to win that election under the guidelines.

I think we are opening something of a Pandora’s box and, if I may say so, entering cloud cuckoo land if we get to a stage where this Parliament is mandating to measure public trust. There are organisations that do that. We have polling companies: in my view too many of them, and too many opinion polls—and that view is not just because the Conservative party are not in front in those polls at the moment. I find it difficult to support a requirement on the statute book for a report on the impact of the Act on trust in elections.

[David Simmonds]

Does my hon. Friend note, as I do, that the international gold standard for the conduct of elections is set by the Venice Commission: a group of academics and people with political experience from countries across the democratic world who meet to consider measures including voter identification, the conduct of polls, the transparency of electoral material—all those different matters. When I asked the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government whether the Government had considered the input and latest reports of the Venice Commission, it was clear that the Secretary of State had not even heard of the Venice Commission. That is an example of something that would, to a degree, undermine trust and confidence in elections. As my hon. Friend is setting out, the outcome of any poll depends very much on who asks the question, how they ask it and of whom they ask it. Given that the new clause simply cannot set that out in statute, it does not add value to the Bill.

[Paul Holmes]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I honestly believe that the new clause does not add any value. It does the reverse. Indeed, the report that would be published within 12 months of the Bill passing could reduce trust in politics. Trust is subjective. We all have different opinions. Let us say that the Bill passes with this new clause and, 12 months after the next local elections or general election, there is a report on trust in elections. There are so many different opinions on the criteria outlined in the new clause that the Government would be reporting on, that there will be many people who disagree with the Secretary of State’s report, thereby undermining trust in the democratic process, whichever side of the coin they are on—on proportional representation, on first past the post, on the Electoral Commission, on the way in which parties were funded and on the way in which they campaigned. A general election itself is the ultimate arbiter of trust in politics.

This is one of the stranger new clauses that we have seen. I do not say that personally to the hon. Members for Hazel Grove and for Guildford, but we should be rolling back legislation. All the way through our consideration of the Bill, the Liberal Democrats and I have called on the Electoral Commission to do more, but we have also called for the Electoral Commission to have the right resourcing to operate the mechanisms for which both we and the Government, in different respects, have been calling. The new clause will add more bureaucracy and more reporting, and it will undermine trust in the electoral system, which is already—I absolutely accept—in a very delicate state.

However, the Minister is absolutely correct. The elections, as undertaken, and the results of the elections, as determined by the democratic will of the people of this country, are the result of trust. There are many organisations that can measure trust; I do not think that it is up to the Government to measure it. It is up to Governments to lose elections if they are not trusted, and it is up to Governments, or the Opposition, to win them if they are trusted. That is the way that things should stay.

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Family voting—which we know exists, despite some people saying that it does not—is a breach of the Ballot Secrecy Act. It is not unreasonable to expect the Government to look again at whether our polling stations and ballot processes are working when making legislation such as this Bill. For example, should the tables in our polling stations be divided into quarters, which allows people to look over at how others are voting, or should we look at implementing an American system, where we disguise tables, so that people are reassured that their votes are being cast in secret, as they should be under UK legislation?

[David Simmonds]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. A consistent theme that has emerged from his points, and from the evidence and debate in this Committee is that we can have all the rules we like, but enforcement is a major challenge. In particular, it highlights inconsistency. Because there is an element of vagueness in the law, it is sometimes left to the individual clerk of a polling station, with or without good advice from a returning officer or electoral officer, to try to determine the appropriate course of action. Hence, people breaching the law would be kicked out in some places, but not in others. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential that we get the detail correct in the Bill in order to ensure greater consistency, and therefore trust and confidence, in the practice of elections across the country?

[Paul Holmes]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. At the moment, on polling days, the law is interpreted differently at different polling stations—I am using polling stations as an example because the most interaction we have with voters is when they cast their ballot, and they should be pleased to do so. Going back to the example of my constituency, different counts and polling stations have different interpretations of the distance at which it is acceptable to display a poster. I have been in situations where down one road, they are allowed right up to the door, and even in the station in some cases, and in other areas they are not allowed in the car park. That is all based on interpretation. The new clause seeks to ensure that we have uniform electoral guidance. That would be produced by the Electoral Commission, which, as the Minister outlined, is an independent organisation that is being asked to take on more responsibilities to assess, approve and give out statutory guidance to returning officers.

Most people drive to and park at polling stations on their journey to vote, and candidates and tellers— I believe in telling, because it gives people interaction with the political parties before they cast their vote—often wait outside. Can any Member say that, in the last election they participated in, there was a uniform code as to what they saw at each polling station? I would say no. Election staff do not have that central guidance to say what should and should not happen. Often, when candidates report inconsistencies, because there are inconsistencies it is much harder to prove that a breach has happened.

In the discussions we have had this afternoon, each and every political party has wanted to ensure that our democratic process is tightened up, whether that is from foreign interference, cryptocurrency donations or donations from this country, and whether we want new people to be able to vote, or want people to give ID to vote—all of those things are contained in the Bill.

[David Simmonds]

To bring my hon. Friend back to where he started, what is so striking about what he is saying is that the moment when the voter goes to the polling station is the key interaction that most people have with our democracy.

The debates that we as politicians are interested in, about the sources of electoral finance and the eligibility of different people to come and vote, while important, are not as salient as what is going on in the mind of the voter at the point they cast their ballot. Their ability to do that with complete faith in the integrity of that process is critical. Does he agree that it is even more saliant to make the point that this review and update are necessary, because for the voter that represents the front door or the window on politics, and that then influences all the other issues that have been brought up by Members?

[Paul Holmes]

I agree with my hon. Friend. To ironically, yet seriously, relate this to the previous new clause we discussed, I would argue that having a uniform code of guidance where voters are given assurance that everything is run in the same way would rebuild trust in our democracy, the Government and the process.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the difference between us sad political operatives, who look at electoral law and whether everything is being run okay, and the average voter on the street—a term that I hate—is that people out there either have not thought about the fact that there are local elections or do not think about the machinery of how a ballot is run. When they approach a polling station and have difficulty, the trust that they have in the integrity of the system is damaged. Having the reassurance that the Government, regardless of political colour, are looking to give an independent body powers of review, perhaps after every general election, would add to trust and the feeling that there is competence in the voting system.

As we go through the journey of the voter, I know for a fact that there is the odd conspiracy theory about pencil versus pen—some places people can vote by pen, some places by pencil, and people say that their vote could be rubbed out if they vote by pencil. I happen not to subscribe to that theory, as our election staff are people of integrity. But even that is not clarified under central returning officer guidance; if it was, it would allow people to have confidence.

People often look at how others vote in polling stations. I hate to break the news to you, Sir Desmond, but they do. When we stand at a polling station, and a person is voting just there—for the benefit of Hansard, I am indicating that there is another desk to the right of me—we can see how they are voting. That breaches the trust that we need. I say to the Minister, who I know is going to reject this new clause because so far the Government have not conceded on much, that if we are all democrats then we should not be afraid of assessing whether our elections work.

We have a groundbreaking piece of legislation—I am sure when we get to Report stage, the Minister will now say in the Chamber, “the shadow Minister said this is groundbreaking legislation”. It has its bad points and very good points, but I accept that it is groundbreaking—but it could be even more groundbreaking. It could be the key piece of legislation that builds the integrity of our election system, which as the hon. Member for Guildford outlined, is extremely delicate at the moment.

[David Simmonds]

This is one of the most important parts of the debate we will have on this Bill. Most of us, as politicians, will have experienced a voter telling us on the doorstep that they would be willing to vote for our party but that they lack confidence in the secrecy of the ballot, because they know that the ballot paper issued has a serial number on it that could in theory be tracked down later to establish how they voted.

Does my hon. Friend agree that when we look at electoral behaviour, the turnout in, for example, local elections, has been consistent for 100 years, and that debates around trust have not been as material to people’s willingness to vote as trust in politics in general, because confidence in the ballot, and the sense of what is at stake in those elections, really matters? That is really a question of politics, rather than, as earlier amendments suggested, a question of trust. Does he agree that the significance of this is about ensuring the integrity of the process by which democracy happens, as opposed to a wider debate that reflects our political views about that process?

[Paul Holmes]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This is not about whether one political party—or one party in government—is more trustworthy than the other; we leave that to the voters. This is about trusting in the integrity of the voters. He is absolutely right that the greatest influence and first right of every citizen in this country should be their ability to participate in the democratic process, pick their Government and pick the elected representatives who stand up for them, but there needs to be integrity.

My hon. Friend is right to outline that this should be seen not in a party political way, but in a process way. The new clause would contribute to that aim by giving powers to the independent Electoral Commission, which, as the Minister reminded us in the previous sitting of this Committee, is governed by Parliament, not the Government. This is a step that the Minister could take, seeing that they are very keen to give the Electoral Commission increased power.

This new clause is crucial and non-partisan, and it would allow us to have a tangible effect on the trust in and integrity of our system. Nobody is bigger or better than the system that we have, but that system can be improved, and we should not be shying away from allowing ourselves to improve it, no matter who is in government, to make sure that every time that a voter walks into a polling station, they know that their vote will be cast in the most secret and best way possible. I hope the Minister will look kindly upon the new clause, although I am sure she will not. I look forward to her remarks in response.

[Dr Chowns]

Ballot secrecy is extremely important. The shadow Minister has talked about family voting. I am deeply disappointed and concerned by the implicitly discriminatory accusations made by some parties in relation to family voting in recent weeks. I wish we saw as much passion about the far greater threat to our democracy posed by the skewing effect of huge donations.

Conservative members of the Committee made no contribution in the discussion on caps on donations or limits on expenditure earlier this afternoon, but have devoted considerable airtime to this particular topic. I ask all of us to consider: what is the greatest threat to the integrity of our political system?

[David Simmonds]

There is a crucial distinction that I am interested in with the hon. Member’s reflection on—

[The Chair]

Order. I am sure that it would the hon. Gentleman’s greatest pleasure to address the Chair, particularly when I am in it.

[David Simmonds]

My apologies, Sir Desmond. I was seeking the hon. Member’s views on what happens at the point of casting a vote, which is where all of us exercise our equal democratic freedom. We have a vote each, and we cast it in the same way in a process that needs to have integrity. There is no guarantee that any amount of expenditure will influence a voter in a particular way if they feel that that is wrong, and each of us as voters exercises that judgment equally and freely under the law. The amendments we have been so keen to spend some time on are about the integrity of and confidence in that process, under which every single voter is equal in the power they exercise in a democracy.

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[Paul Holmes]

Forgive me, Sir Desmond. I do not think that has necessarily been unique to me on this Committee, but I will draw my remarks to a close. I am being challenged over my intentions in tabling the amendment. It was well intentioned, but it has been said that it is about just one thing and that it is weaponising an issue, which it is not.

[David Simmonds]

I am keen to avoid being accused of being repetitious in any circumstances. Does my hon. Friend agree that the key strength he is advocating for is the integrity of the ballot as the guardian against all these issues? If we have a secret ballot that we can trust, all the issues of corruption, undue influence, family voting or whatever they may be are managed appropriately. If we fail to ensure the integrity of the ballot, things become irresponsible.

[The Chair]

Order. That is definitely a repetition of points that have already been made.

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[Paul Holmes]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a second time.

This new clause is vital. I would say that, because we tabled it, but it aims to repair some of the imbalance in the tactics that we have seen in recent elections, and to give every voter a level playing field to participate in voting in an equal way.

The new clause relates to the language of campaign materials. It would provide that:

“During the relevant period campaign material must not be promoted or published in a foreign language.”

By that, I mean the short regulated campaign period. If a person were found guilty of an offence because they caused

“campaign material to be promoted or published that falls within subsection (1)”—

in other words, in a foreign language—they would be liable on summary conviction

“in England and Wales, to a fine”

or

“in Scotland or Northern Ireland to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.”

I want to be clear why we have tabled the new clause. We are all politicians who campaign in our constituencies, but we all know that politics is becoming more divisive in the messages that certain parties are putting out there. An election leaflet in the Gorton and Denton by-election was written in Urdu. It said: “Give the Muslims a voice. Punish Labour for their views on Gaza. Vote Green.” Notwithstanding that that is a divisive statement to make, the Green party actively and purposely made it to prey on the vulnerabilities of a community that are not as involved in British society as they should be, and get them to vote Green on one issue: foreign policy and the Labour Government’s decisions on Gaza. Every Government’s first duty to this country is to keep their citizens safe. Regardless of what we think about Gaza, or any one issue, that is the Government’s No. 1 duty. On foreign policy, the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have undertaken those responsibilities. They do that every day. That is what the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary are supposed to do.

When campaign materials are published in a foreign language to exploit communities that should be much more involved in British society than they are, that is exploitation for political gain. That skewed the result of the by-election in Gorton and Denton. Let me be clear that I am not contesting the result of that election. My party was never going to win it, so if anybody wanted to intervene on me and say, “It’s because you got a measly 6%,” that would be entirely true. But let us face it: not everybody in that constituency could see what the Green party was saying to those communities about Gaza. The constituency is very diverse; it has a big white working-class community and a big ethnic minority community. I say it again: that was exploitation of one community on one issue, and the Green party was guilty of doing that.

[David Simmonds]

My hon. Friend has spoken eloquently about the Green party’s shocking behaviour in the Gorton and Denton by-election, but does he recall the evidence that we heard on our first day in Committee from Tower Hamlets? That gave us all cause to reflect that this is not simply about a shocking recent issue involving the Green party; it has been a long-standing concern in our politics. If we want to ensure that everybody has equality of access to our democracy, we need to make sure that we get this right. Using the established languages of our nation is a key part of that.

[Paul Holmes]

I agree with my hon. Friend. That is one example, but we know there have been issues with electoral integrity in Tower Hamlets. Previous Governments stepped in in Tower Hamlets because there were breaches in relation to some of the election materials that were going out.

My contention is that every voter, no matter where they come from, should be able to have the same access to campaign materials. It is not unreasonable that digital and physical election materials should be on an equal footing in the short campaign—people can do otherwise at any other time—when emotions can be high, polls can be tight and parties are campaigning very hard.

The Government are moving towards trying to encourage translation anyway. The Secretary of State released a social cohesion strategy that is supposed to make every citizen in this country feel or identify as British, and feel safe and at one in this country. The only way we can do that is by increasing funding for translation services and encouraging people, and sometimes forcing people, to learn the languages of this country. Those are English, Scottish, Welsh or the other registered languages in the British Isles. That is not unreasonable. The Government clearly do not think that it is unreasonable, because in the social cohesion strategy they actively promote it. All I am trying to do is make it official that people should be reading their election materials in one of the official British languages.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Chowns]

The new clause, tabled by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer), proposes creating a new offence of misleading the public by candidates in a parliamentary election campaign. We are witnessing a proliferation of disinformation with a concurrent rise in distrust among the public. A recent survey by Ipsos MORI found that just 11% of the UK public trust politicians to tell the truth. That is clearly problematic and, unlike in advertising, finance or medicine, there is no legally enforceable standard of requiring truthfulness from those who hold or seek public office.

Ministers are not allowed to lie, but, under the current situation, candidates can. This lack of accountability does, unfortunately, create an incentive to deceive. As the old saying goes, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. This legal vacuum has, unfortunately, enabled far-right figures to weaponise disinformation. It has enabled foreign powers to covertly manipulate elections and policy, and manipulation of voters through false factual claims has changed the landscape of the nation. There are already examples of that, including Brexit and campaign tactics in previous elections.

New clause 59 aims to protect voters from political deception by holding parliamentary candidates accountable for acts intentionally designed to mislead the public or manipulate voting in their favour. A similar measure is already provided for in the Government’s Public Office (Accountability) Bill. That creates a new offence of misleading the public, which will cover public officials. The parallel measure in new clause 59 will ensure that candidates are included in a similar provision and cannot use deliberate deception to win public office.

As it happens, the Welsh Government have recently introduced equivalent legislation to create an offence of deliberate deception by candidates. Westminster would not be acting alone, and the new clause would provide consistency across Britain.

This would not be a law to punish genuine mistakes, misspeaking and so forth, or to restrict legitimate political rhetoric. It would not cover manifestos, as a manifesto is a statement of intent. It would not create a new area of law, but merely extend it to plug the gaping loophole of political deception by applying existing legal principles.

The new clause includes safeguards to ensure fairness, such as a high legal threshold for wrongdoing and a defence for those acting with reasonable excuse. Its phrasing ensures that the threshold for wrongdoing is high. It applies only to conduct that is “seriously improper,” so it targets deliberate misinformation campaigns, major false claims that could influence voters and manipulative or dishonest campaign tactics that are falsely used to steer voters towards a particular decision.

There is overwhelming public support for this measure. A petition on this issue has more than 200,000 signatures, and polling by Opinium shows that 72% of voters support it. Further research by Survation found that a majority of voters in every single party is in favour of it. This measure would go some way to help repair trust in our politics, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

I will briefly speak to new clauses 61 to 64, tabled by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders). New clause 61 would introduce a code of conduct for political campaigning and put that on a statutory footing. There is already widespread agreement that we need a code of conduct for political campaigning—that was a recommendation from the Speaker’s Conference last year. The Government have committed to establishing a code of conduct for campaigns following that recommendation, and the Electoral Commission has absolutely welcomed this.

I draw colleagues’ attention to one of the evidence sessions at the Speaker’s Conference last year, in which Labour’s executive director of governance and legal highlighted the question of whether the code of conduct should be statutory. He said:

“A code might be helpful in setting a public benchmark of acceptable behaviour…ultimately, you would probably want it to be enforceable in some way, and then the question would be, is it appropriate to put that on a statutory footing? Is there a possibility of agreeing something?”

I ask the Minister to consider that we have an excellent opportunity to put it on a statutory footing in this Bill to ensure that that code of conduct, which is so widely recognised as being absolutely necessary as per the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference, has the force of primary legislation behind it.

New clause 62 is about an electoral advertising code of practice. We have already discussed issues relating to electoral advertising, and I have shared with the Committee my huge concerns about the regulation of online political advertising in particular and the urgent need for a real-time political adverts library. This new clause is more general. It is frankly unclear why ads for commercial products are held to greater account than ads that move votes and affect election outcomes. Fundamentally, that seems weird, unequal and deeply problematic.

The organisation Reform Political Advertising has been campaigning very effectively, long and hard, in this area. In the 2024 London mayoral election, for example, it trailed a factual accuracy code, which seven London mayoral candidates, including Sadiq Khan and the Green and Liberal Democrat candidates, signed up to, and others supported.

International precedent also exists. Regulation of factual claims in electoral advertising has been in place in New Zealand for several decades, with cross-party support.

[David Simmonds]

For the benefit of the Committee, will the hon. Lady briefly set out who—it could be a body or an individual—would be the appropriate judge of factual accuracy? I am sure all political parties have been on the receiving end of the famous Lib Dem bar chart, which says, in tiny letters underneath, “Survey of 10 people we asked in the pub last night.” It could be argued that it was factually accurate, based on that very dubious source. How will we ensure that, where there is some dispute about the facts, there is a sufficient degree of independence in arbitrating that question?

[Dr Chowns]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the very next new clause on the selection list, which engages with precisely that question.

In addition to New Zealand, there are similar rules about the regulation of political advertising in Australia. On the question of who will adjudicate, there is currently no independent body with the power to adjudicate on the truthfulness or accuracy of non-broadcast political advertising. That is an issue. Provision has been made in the new clauses for a separation: the code of practice would be established by the Electoral Commission and the oversight of the decision making—the adjudication—would be done by a different body.

The 2020 report by the Lords Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee, “Digital Technology and the Resurrection of Trust”, called for a regulatory committee on political advertising that would involve relevant experts from the Advertising Standards Authority, the Electoral Commission, Ofcom and the UK Statistics Authority, who would co-operate through a regulatory committee on political advertising. Political parties would then work with those regulators to develop a code of practice, along with appropriate sanctions, that restricts fundamentally inaccurate advertising during a parliamentary or mayoral election or referendum. The Lords Committee recommends that that regulatory committee should adjudicate breaches of the code, and that is effectively what new clause 63 would put in place.

“What then would happen about sanctions?” I hear hon. Members ask. Well, that takes us on to new clause 64, which again creates a separation. It would establish an enforcement framework and enable the Electoral Commission to impose civil sanctions for breaches of the advertising code, basically according to a ladder of increasing seriousness.

I warmly recommend the new clauses to the Government and the Committee. Despite the rapidity of my speech, given the shortness of time, the way that advertising can distort our politics is a crucial issue. I very much hope that the Government will warmly consider the issues, alongside all the other ones that they will hopefully come back to us on at a later stage.

[Dr Chowns]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

New clause, by leave, withdrawn.

[David Simmonds]

On a point of order, Sir Desmond, may I seek your guidance? I know that the hon. Member for North Herefordshire said earlier that, for reasons of time, she did not wish to go into sufficient detail. Can you just confirm to the Committee that we have two further full days of consideration, which are already in everybody’s diaries? I know that the Government Whip declined my suggestion of an adjournment earlier; however, Members should not feel constrained in fully setting out the concerns that they have or the issues that they wish to raise about the Bill, given that—as I understand it and as I have just said—we still have a further two days of consideration available to us.

[The Chair]

I can only confirm that there are four more sittings over two days—Tuesday and Thursday of next week.

New Clause 66

Electoral Commission: Power to institute criminal proceedings in England and Wales or Northern Ireland

“In Schedule 1 to PPERA 2000, leave out sub-paragraph (2)(b).” —(Dr Chowns.)

This new clause would remove the prohibition on the Electoral Commission from instituting criminal proceedings in England and Wales and Northern Ireland.

Brought up, and read the First time.

Representation of the People Bill (Eighth sitting)

David Simmonds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Lisa Smart]

The arrests were made for support for a proscribed organisation via holding a placard that said the holder supports that organisation. I think we are talking about the same case. I understand the point that the hon. Member makes. Proscription of organisations is a tool that the Government rightly uses, although I have questioned the proportionality of the use of that tool. New clause 3 particularly mentions political violence; the hon. Member is talking about peaceful protest, if I understand her correctly. All hon. Members on this Committee, and everyone beyond it, should support the right for people to tell a Government that they think the Government have got it wrong. We should all support that and not make it harder for people to do it. If, however, someone is guilty of a

“prescribed offence relating to the promotion, incitement, or use of political violence”,

I do not think that they should be able to financially support a political party. The promotion of an organisation is the same as supporting an organisation. There are ways of supporting organisations and causes that stay exactly the right side of the law. While I am not of the view that the Government have always used proscription rules proportionately in recent months, I do think that, if those rules exist, they should be able to be used in that way by those who are enforcing the law.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I am sympathetic to the point that the hon. Member is trying to make. I have listened carefully to what she said about new clauses 2 and 3. With respect to new clause 3, it would be helpful to consider the treatment of those who may have been opponents of an oppressive foreign political regime who have been convicted in this country of an offence that might be a proscribed offence under mutual recognition arrangements, but where they perhaps sought asylum in the UK. We have seen examples of people who were vocal opponents of the Putin regime in Russia coming to the UK and joining a political party. Those are people who we recognise as good citizens. How would they be treated should that offence be on that proscribed list?

In respect to new clause 2, again, I have sympathy, but I raise the issue of business people undertaking consular roles in other countries. It is quite common, for example, for a British business person who may be the British consul in a particular town to then be appointed by a series of other Governments to act for them as an agent in that respect. Subsequently, on returning to the UK that business person would be caught by the rules in new clause 2, even though those restrictions are in no way intended to target those types of activities. Has the hon. Member given some thought to how those types of roles would be captured and how they might be excluded?

[Lisa Smart]

New clause 3 talks specifically about political violence. While we can sometimes agree with the message that opponents of our adversaries use, it is right that we are against political violence and those who promote political violence. I think that covers his question on new clause 3.

Representation of the People Bill (Sixth sitting)

David Simmonds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Samantha Dixon]

I thank Members for the wide-ranging and constructive points that they have made. The Government accept the thrust of the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Hamble Valley; however, we believe the existing clauses already allow for foreign links, the status of the foreign influence registration scheme and other relevant indicators to be considered.

It is important for us all to consider—this speaks to a point that the hon. Member for North Herefordshire made—that, as drafted, the list of statutory risk factors is capable of amendment by secondary legislation, so that the framework can remain up to date. As new risks emerge, they can be addressed through secondary legislation. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove made the point that this is a very fast-moving landscape. When the Government introduced the strategy last July, it was prior to the conviction of Nathan Gill. New risks have emerged in considerable number in the past year, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset described how new parties are emerging. It is important that legislation is not prescriptive in a way that hampers consideration of risks as they emerge.

I appreciate the sensitivity that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove expressed—I think the hon. Member for Hamble Valley understands this too—to the challenge of legislating in a fast-moving landscape. The Government are responding as promptly as we can. On the timetable, Parliament will be prorogued soon—I do not know when; my hon. Friend the Government Whip may have more intelligence on that—but this is a carry-over Bill, and that is important given the consideration and consultation that needs to happen as we respond to the Rycroft review.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I want to pick up on the implications of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley and the hon. Member for South Dorset. We are all aware that Reform was the first political organisation to come into being as a private company. It operates outside the framework of a traditional political party, and that carries with it some risks.

As the Minister has outlined, the intention is that the framework identifying those risks can be regularly updated. However, that organisation has been in existence for some six years, so this is not something that has suddenly materialised. The point that my hon. Friend outlined in his contribution, and in the amendments covering things such as FIRS, is that that these are emerging risks that we have all been aware of for some time.

I appreciate the Minister’s point about the timetable and where we are in this Session, but it would be helpful to understand from her how soon those long-standing risks that we have been aware of for some time will find their way into secondary legislation and therefore the framework, or where they might feature in amendments on Report so that they can be properly taken into account.

Representation of the People Bill (Seventh sitting)

David Simmonds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

Additionally, the new clause would apply only to material wholly generated by a generative AI system. In practice, we would expect most digital campaigning content to be at least partially edited, curated or adapted by campaigners, even where AI had been used at some stage. That threshold would therefore be difficult to interpret, and would create uncertainty for campaigners and enforcement authorities. There is also a significant risk that the new clause would quickly become outdated. As we have discussed, AI continues to evolve rapidly, and the definition in the new clause may struggle to keep pace with technological developments, potentially rendering the provision obsolete within a short period. For those reasons, although we share the intention to strengthen transparency around digital campaigning, the Government do not believe that the new clause is workable or proportionate.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I have a lot of sympathy for what the Minister is saying. It seems to me that there is a risk of a “may contain nuts” kind of solution emerging: campaigners could simply put, “This may contain artificially generated imagery” on every item of digital campaigning and comply with the law, but that would not tell us whether what is being represented has been materially altered. In the light of her earlier comments about the autumn timeline, will she give the Committee a clear commitment to work not just with political parties but with industry, with a view to ensuring that we have effective copywriting and watermarking, which we know many of these organisation are already developing, so that anybody looking at political content can be confident that what they are seeing is genuinely what was said by that politician, candidate or party?

[Samantha Dixon]

The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point. As I mentioned earlier, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology announced that the Government have established a taskforce to take forward proposals for Government on best practice for labelling AI-generated material. With the interim report due to be published in the autumn, I think it is timely that I should write to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology to outline the concerns that have been debated in the Committee—I am looking to my officials to ensure that we pick this up—because I think it will be very informative for the taskforce’s work. If the hon. Gentleman is happy for me to do that, I will do so.

Finally, the Government recognise that there are potential issues with section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which the hon. Member for North Herefordshire mentioned. We are reviewing how that legislation should apply in a modern electoral setting and, where necessary, we will take appropriate action to clarify the scope of the section, particularly to make sure that it captures emerging technologies such as deepfakes and other AI technologies and is future-proofed.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 63 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 64 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 65

Decriminalisation of certain requirements

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Samantha Dixon]

It is our intention to increase the maximum fine level in secondary legislation, as I stated earlier. Its level will be debated at that time. We will debate it in secondary legislation, but it needs to remain proportionate, and we need to move towards it in a considered way and debate it then.

[David Simmonds]

I think there is a high degree of political agreement that this is the right direction of travel. Could the Minister say a little bit more about the assessment that the Department will have done about the resource implications for the Electoral Commission? We are all conscious that regulatory enforcement can come at an enormous cost to the regulator, especially where bad actors have specifically structured arrangements to evade rules and enforcement.

We have seen examples in other jurisdictions where political action committees, fake political parties and short-term political parties have been set up specifically to get around the regulations set out in light terms in the Bill. Given that that is likely to be partially funded by a costs award in the event of somebody having been found to be in breach, alongside the fine, could the Minister indicate what she thinks the cost implications are for the Electoral Commission? That is especially given that we have seen regulators in multiple jurisdictions face enormous costs for the legal process required to enforce their judgments.

[Samantha Dixon]

My officials work very closely with the Electoral Commission and would not have acted without consideration and with consultation with it. I remind the Committee that decisions about the resourcing of the Electoral Commission fall to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission. That is the route by which it is funded. We would not want to make regulation too burdensome, but correspondingly, the Electoral Commission reports to the Speaker’s Committee regularly about its resourcing needs. Indeed, mostly recently, it returned money to the Speaker’s Committee that it did not feel it needed. To reassure Members, officials work closely with it to ensure there is sufficient resource.

Our policy ambition is for these legislative changes to be consistent across reserved and devolved elections and to be commenced in a way that provides clarity to campaigners on how the rules will be enforced across all elections. Clause 68 provides for that, as it allows the Secretary of State to make provisions that could otherwise be made by Scottish or Welsh Ministers, but only with the consent of Scottish or Welsh Ministers. In practice, subject to the agreement of the devolved Governments, that will enable us to introduce a uniform set of changes to the role and power of the Electoral Commission in relation to local government elections in Scotland and Wales.

I turn to clause 69. The Electoral Commission currently lacks an explicit statutory gateway to disclose information to other regulators and law enforcement bodies. The lack of an explicit legal basis for information sharing forces the commission to rely on incidental powers or bespoke memorandums of understanding to disclose information. Those arrangements create unnecessary complexity and delays, and make information sharing more burdensome than it ought to be. They have embedded unnecessary friction into the system, slowing co-operation between regulators on important cross-cutting regulatory issues, and frustrating the very bodies charged with upholding the integrity of our democratic processes.

To underpin our wider reforms to strengthen enforcement, the clause provides a clear legal basis for information sharing, enabling the commission to disclose information to specified regulators and enforcement bodies. It will nurture an environment of collaboration between relevant bodies on cross-cutting issues such as foreign interference, data protection and digital campaigning. To ensure that the information-sharing gateway remains effective as the regulatory landscape evolves, the list of bodies can be amended by the Secretary of State, following consultation with the Electoral Commission and subject to parliamentary approval via the affirmative procedure.

The Government note that one of the recommendations of the Rycroft report is to build on this measure and make the information-sharing gateway reciprocal, to provide clarity that the Electoral Commission can also receive information from relevant bodies. We are carefully considering all the recommendations from the Rycroft review. We will issue a full Government response in due course, and, where appropriate, we will introduce new amendments to the Bill.

With those assurances, I commend clause 69 to the Committee. I will allow other Members to speak to the new clauses and I will respond to them in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Holmes]

I absolutely accept the Minister’s point that it is accountable to Parliament, but her party and her Government have a majority in this Parliament, and her Government are asking the Electoral Commission to do a huge amount more. She says that it has been consulted, but all I would say is that, in other areas, it was not consulted when the Government have arbitrarily gone ahead and decided to do what they want to do.

The Minister is also correct, and I thank her for her correction, that the Electoral Commission already issues fines. I do not dispute that, but this Government, through schedule 10 and clause 65, are trying to remove some of the fine elements from the judicial system and place more responsibility on the Electoral Commission. That is my concern about the extra responsibility it would have, which has been taken away from the judicial system, as well as some of the other responsibilities that it is being asked to take on, as we have discussed in relation to previous clauses.

[David Simmonds]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, when we look across the system, we see other regulators—Ofcom probably comes to mind—where fines have been issued through a civil process like the one this legislation envisages. We know that Ofcom is currently engaged in a battle with 4chan, which it has fined a very significant sum for failing to meet legal requirements in the United Kingdom for age verification checks for online pornography. 4chan’s response has been to refuse to pay the fine and to counter-sue in the courts of the United States, arguing that, because it has a headquarters in the US, it is effectively a restraint on trade by the British Government and a breach of its rights under US legislation.

Clearly, there is a significant possibility, given that civil courts have a different burden of proof than criminal courts, that this could end up entangling the Electoral Commission in all sorts of long-running and extremely expensive disputes in a way that is not currently envisaged. We need to foresee that risk and plan for it appropriately.

[Paul Holmes]

I agree. I am all in favour of streamlining and making things more efficient, but I am worried that the unintended consequence of essentially removing the judicial oversight element is that the Electoral Commission cannot actually enforce—or, if it does try to enforce, adherence can simply be refused. The Government have done this in another organisation, Natural England, through measures in the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025. They gave Natural England—an organisation that has limited finances—an enforcement role in legislation, but with no teeth. Therefore, I share my hon. Friend’s concern that this simply will not work.

I have said what I have to say on those clauses, and I would like to press new clause 41 to a vote. We will not oppose any of those clauses, but I warn again that we are concerned about the Electoral Commission’s ability to undertake its responsibilities, and I know that the Minister has responded to that.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Maximising rises in council tax underpins this Government’s entire approach to council finance. The Minister has admitted that no assessment has been done of the impact that this has on the cost of living for British households. As the Government send in the bailiffs to support their council tax maximisation strategy, will she assure the House that the Prime Minister has considered the impact of these huge council tax rises on working households?

[Alison McGovern]

I think that is a little bit rich given what we all lived through over the past 14 years. I say to the hon. Gentleman that, on average, Tory councils cost people more. I know that the best way we will ensure that council finances recover from the period of Tory austerity is to improve services, stop paying the cost of failure and help deal with the cost of living crisis.

Representation of the People Bill (Fifth sitting)

David Simmonds Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Holmes]

I rise to oppose clause 47, as well as speak in support of Opposition amendment 30. I will also speak to new clause 19, tabled by the Liberal Democrats. Not one person or organisation at the first evidence session of this Bill Committee supported changing this element of the legislation to enable bank cards to be shown as an acceptable form of ID. Witnesses said that t1hey had great concerns about that change. Across the House, we should all agree—and I am sure we do—that the integrity, security and safety of the electoral process in this country must be upheld.

I strongly contend that the Government’s watering down of voter identification will lead to more impersonation, more prosecutions and a less safe electoral system compared with the one we currently have. Under the Elections Act 2022, the previous Government brought in photographic voter identification. It is a simple fact that, if people do not have one of the acceptable forms of ID, they can apply for one for that specific circumstance. I ask the Minister, seriously, to listen to those witnesses again. They are experts in their field and they gave strong warnings about the integrity or ability of a bank card to be shown as a viable form of identification.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I very much agree with what my hon. Friend is saying. Clause 47(3), which refers to the treatment of digital forms of bank cards, says that, in digital form, they are a specified document and valid for ID purposes

“only if a person can form a reasonable view about whether it is a specified document by means of visual inspection alone.”

That is a significant burden to place on a polling clerk, the returning officer or another election official—the paragraph does not specify who that person is—to determine whether, when an individual shows them an image that may or may not be that person’s bank card, which is not required to contain a photograph or anything like that, it is the genuine article. Particularly given the significant growth of online banking, does my hon. Friend agree that that opens to door to this supporting impersonation in a way that would constitute electoral fraud?

[Paul Holmes]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. Banking has advanced to such a great extent that I could pay for my cup of coffee on my iPhone with my bank card showing—nowhere does that card have my name on it. What if people do not have a physical bank card? Although the legislation says that voters have to show a physical form of bank card, there are different cards now. The designs of bank cards have changed, and no two bank cards are of exactly the same design. It is very hard to put the burden of evidence on a volunteer election official at a polling station and expect them to ask the elector to provide their bank card; if they are not satisfied, they will be put at risk.

I contend that, if this measure is implemented at the next election, the number of arguments or attacks at polling stations will increase because of the downgrading of the type of ID required. ID is very simple and very expected, as we first heard at the evidence session. It has absolutely bedded in, and it is well known now, because of campaigns by the Electoral Commission, that voters are to take photographic ID to a polling station. Many people now know that. It is the least we should expect that, when people try to vote in this country, they should show a form of photographic identification.

Representation of the People Bill (Fifth sitting)

David Simmonds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 26th March 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Holmes]

I rise to oppose clause 47, as well as speak in support of Opposition amendment 30. I will also speak to new clause 19, tabled by the Liberal Democrats. Not one person or organisation at the first evidence session of this Bill Committee supported changing this element of the legislation to enable bank cards to be shown as an acceptable form of ID. Witnesses said that t1hey had great concerns about that change. Across the House, we should all agree—and I am sure we do—that the integrity, security and safety of the electoral process in this country must be upheld.

I strongly contend that the Government’s watering down of voter identification will lead to more impersonation, more prosecutions and a less safe electoral system compared with the one we currently have. Under the Elections Act 2022, the previous Government brought in photographic voter identification. It is a simple fact that, if people do not have one of the acceptable forms of ID, they can apply for one for that specific circumstance. I ask the Minister, seriously, to listen to those witnesses again. They are experts in their field and they gave strong warnings about the integrity or ability of a bank card to be shown as a viable form of identification.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I very much agree with what my hon. Friend is saying. Clause 47(3), which refers to the treatment of digital forms of bank cards, says that, in digital form, they are a specified document and valid for ID purposes

“only if a person can form a reasonable view about whether it is a specified document by means of visual inspection alone.”

That is a significant burden to place on a polling clerk, the returning officer or another election official—the paragraph does not specify who that person is—to determine whether, when an individual shows them an image that may or may not be that person’s bank card, which is not required to contain a photograph or anything like that, it is the genuine article. Particularly given the significant growth of online banking, does my hon. Friend agree that that opens to door to this supporting impersonation in a way that would constitute electoral fraud?

[Paul Holmes]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. Banking has advanced to such a great extent that I could pay for my cup of coffee on my iPhone with my bank card showing—nowhere does that card have my name on it. What if people do not have a physical bank card? Although the legislation says that voters have to show a physical form of bank card, there are different cards now. The designs of bank cards have changed, and no two bank cards are of exactly the same design. It is very hard to put the burden of evidence on a volunteer election official at a polling station and expect them to ask the elector to provide their bank card; if they are not satisfied, they will be put at risk.

I contend that, if this measure is implemented at the next election, the number of arguments or attacks at polling stations will increase because of the downgrading of the type of ID required. ID is very simple and very expected, as we first heard at the evidence session. It has absolutely bedded in, and it is well known now, because of campaigns by the Electoral Commission, that voters are to take photographic ID to a polling station. Many people now know that. It is the least we should expect that, when people try to vote in this country, they should show a form of photographic identification.

Points of Order

David Simmonds Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I can see the Secretary of State looking at me and nodding. Let’s take that as a positive.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I seek your guidance? We have just had a statement from the Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government on donations. Can you tell me whether the Secretary of State or the Department have given any indication that they propose to come to the House to give a statement and an opportunity for questions on local government reorganisation? I know that Mr Speaker was particularly concerned that a good deal of information has been placed in the media over the last 24 hours about decisions that have been made, and as yet no Members of this House have had the opportunity to scrutinise the Government on those matters.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Member has put his point appropriately on the record. I have not been given any notice of such statements, but the Front Bench has no doubt heard his concerns and will respond accordingly.

Representation of the People Bill (Fourth sitting)

David Simmonds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 24th March 2026 Public Bill Committees

Clause 16 creates an equivalent duty to raise awareness and provide assistance to the duty created by clause 15, but with reference to Northern Ireland instead of Great Britain. The difference is that this duty applies to health and social care trusts instead of local authorities. That is simply a reflection of the bodies with responsibility for social care and care leavers in Northern Ireland, and so ensures that the duty will work in the same way across the UK. I hope that hon. Members will agree that the duty created by these clauses will provide targeted and invaluable assistance to people who may need it, thus helping ensure that no one who is eligible to cast a vote loses out on being able to do so.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation in response to my earlier questions. Clause 15 says that a local authority

“must take the steps the authority considers necessary”.

One of the challenges with that is that young people will be placed in different areas of the country. The Bill gives rise to the possibility of significant inconsistency. One local authority may take the view that there need to be special arrangements for the young person to be taken to the polling station to cast their vote, or that particular arrangements are necessary for a postal vote to be exercised by someone whose station is further afield. Another authority may take the view that simply giving them a briefing note explaining it would be sufficient. Both of those sound like they would meet the test set out within the Bill.

Can the Minister set out what guidance there may be, either from her Department or from the Department for Education, to ensure that there is a degree of consistency, so that there is equality of access for young people in the care system? That is especially important where the placement they may be in is effectively controlled by a third party. For example, how will there be appropriate measures in place to ensure that a young person in foster care—particularly given the “Staying Put” policy introduced with cross-party support by the last Government, which enables those young people to stay as care leavers with a family with whom they have been fostered—has an equality and consistency of access to both the registration process and the physical ability to cast their vote?

[Samantha Dixon]

The Government are committed to ensuring that everyone who is entitled to vote should be able, encouraged and supported to do so. Different authorities will have different approaches that will arise in different circumstances. Our provisions allow local authorities to take the most suitable approach when assisting people to get on the register. To address the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, while the guidance will be national, the application will be appropriate to local circumstances.

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[Lewis Cocking]

Some people will be automatically enrolled who have chosen, under the current system, not to be on the electoral roll, but it is a question of fairness. If we are not having that across the country, all at the same time, it will create an unfair election result. As I understand it, it will be up to Ministers to choose whether they do it by age, by location or by demographic. If everyone is not enrolled at the same time, one could arguably gerrymander, because one could pick people based on who they are likely to vote for at the general election.

I do not think we need automatic enrolment, but if the Government are going to push forward with it, they could at least say, “We are going to make the next generation fair in terms of auto-enrolment, and we are going to do it for everybody, all at the same time, across the country for the next general election.” If the Government are worried about capacity to do that, I suggest that what is needed is more time. The Electoral Commission might say that it needs more time to do it, so it would have to happen at the next general election after that. As I have said, they could do pilots based on council elections, as long as the whole authority is covered by that pilot.

[David Simmonds]

Does my hon. Friend recall the evidence that we heard about the pilots in Wales? Auto-enrolment was implemented, and when that data was verified, a significant number of voters fell off who should never have been on the roll in the first place. That indicates that there is a risk that auto-enrolment distorts the electoral position at local authority or parliamentary constituency level by adding people who are not eligible to vote. It creates two risks: one is, as my hon. Friend has described, boundaries being drawn in a way that does not allocate people’s votes equally; another is that people will be offered the chance the vote when they are not eligible to participate in that election.

[Lewis Cocking]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and that is why Opposition amendments 26 and 27 are very important, because they go some way—not the whole way, but some way—to mitigating what he has just outlined.

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As part of the pilots, we will be testing the reliability of different datasets and new approaches to registration, such as direct registration. The specific detail of the pilots will be set out in secondary legislation. Ahead of the pilots, we have already begun to explore different datasets to ensure that we have the best possible data and to enable us to identify someone’s entitlement to be registered to vote.

[David Simmonds]

The Minister is addressing the pilots and how they will be learned from. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne set out some broad concerns about the risks to the integrity of the ballot of taking an inconsistent approach, whereby different groups of electors may be targeted for auto-enrolment in different local areas, such that we end up with inconsistency.

Another risk is around identity theft and fraud. For many people, a place on the electoral register is the start of obtaining credit or sometimes of applying for a job or benefits. I am very conscious, as I am sure we will all be from our constituency case work, that getting behind those kinds of fraud and identity theft can be extremely expensive and difficult. For example, a person may apply to go on the electoral register at someone else’s property without your permission. That person may not be genuine or even exist, but under this system, unless a response comes back saying that they do not wish to be added to the register, they will automatically be put on it. That opens a new avenue for fraudsters, and particularly identity thieves.

For the benefit of the Committee, will the Minister therefore set out what consultations there have been with colleagues across Government about evaluating the risk of identity theft that this provision creates for our constituents?

[Samantha Dixon]

I simply suggest that the piloting, with the work of the EROs and the access to the datasets that establish the right and the eligibility to vote, are testing precisely the point the hon. Gentleman is making about avoiding election fraud. That is the purpose of the pilots.

[David Simmonds]

It is not so much about election fraud off the back of this; it is more about somebody getting themselves on the electoral register and applying for a credit facility. One thing the credit provider will check is whether they are on the electoral roll. That person may not exist at all, but because of auto-enrolment they are now on the electoral register, as a result of which they obtain credit. That opens up the risk of fake registrations, which we already hear about from trading standards. It would be helpful to understand what consideration the Government have given to that risk, particularly given the impact it has on vulnerable households among our constituents.

[Samantha Dixon]

The point that I am attempting to make is that this piloting and the move towards auto-enrolment will enable EROs to test, based on a variety of different datasets, that the application is accurate, legitimate and not spurious or in any way fraudulent. While I note the hon. Gentleman’s point, these things are being done to avoid the scenario he has just described.

EROs will continue to exercise their knowledge and judgment to assess eligibility before they send someone a notice that they will be registered to vote. Before a person is automatically enrolled, they will be written to, but the ERO will have tested, through a variety of different datasets, whether that application is legitimate. We will test that robustly and fairly and with the guidance of partners such as the Electoral Commission.

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[David Simmonds]

Does my hon. Friend agree that ensuring full transparency and integrity following any changes is even more important at the moment, given that the integrity of our electoral system is being called into question, including by some parties represented in the House of Commons that say that we cannot rely on the fairness and integrity of elections under the existing rules? Does he agree that the avoidance of future challenge and dissonance relies on this Committee’s being clear what the changes we are being asked to vote on mean in practice? If we cannot be clear with the voters about what this means for them, we should not be doing it. We should be coming back later when we can be clear.

[Paul Holmes]

I do not think it will be a surprise to the Committee that I wholeheartedly agree. This is alien to me. Asking the Committee to vote on the principle of something without the detail and with absolutely no reassurance that the transparency and integrity of the system will be fundamentally better than it is now is bad law making and bad government.

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[David Simmonds]

My hon. Friend refers to the recent judicial review. My understanding is that, rather than losing the judicial review, the Government actually offered no defence. They conceded because they did not wish to be transparent about the decision-making process that the Secretary of State had followed. Subsequent freedom of information requests sought to get under exactly what was happening, but clearly there was correspondence that the Government did not wish to place in the public domain. They preferred to abandon their devolution plans rather than concede on that point.

Does my hon. Friend agree that that is not a great starting point for a Government who are asking us to take them on trust about pilot schemes with a complete absence of detail and no indication of who would be prioritised for auto-enrolment, what the geographical basis would be or what the decision-making process would be? It is not a good basis for asking us to take them on trust when the Government have not been willing to be transparent about elections that they were determined would go ahead, only to cancel them within literally 24 hours.

[Paul Holmes]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. As I say, this Minister is a Minister of integrity, but I find this out in opposition. I work for a shadow Secretary of State; the Minister works for the Secretary of State. On a number of occasions, the Secretary of State has been found to have said things in the Chamber that have turned out not to be the case. It is therefore not right for the Opposition to have confidence that we can rely on a reassurance from the Minister that the pilots will not be used to amend the franchise.

The wording of amendment 28 is so clear that there is no room for manoeuvre. Why does the Minister not accept the amendment and show us that her reassurance is worth the paper it is written on? The amendment would not fundamentally change the passage of the Bill or the parameters of the pilot, but it would provide reassurance that the Government will not use the pilots and whatever comes out of them for a reassessment through the Electoral Commission. We do not know the parameters of the pilots; their geography, as my hon. Friend says; who will be included in them; or the datasets that will be used. The Minister should accept the amendment and give us reassurance that the pilots will not be used to change the franchise.

The Opposition have repeatedly asked and challenged Ministers, particularly the Secretary of State when he took office, about whether local elections would go ahead. The Secretary of State then tried to stop those elections. We know why the Government did not want anybody to see the evidence or the correspondence. It was a pattern that this Government have shown before: putting their own political interests before the interests of the electoral system and before having a credible plan or a credible defence. That is why they were found out. That is why when I looked the Secretary of State in the eye and asked whether he would cancel the local elections, he said he would not—and then he did, on a Thursday morning when he would not get the scrutiny that he deserved from a full House of Commons.

[David Simmonds]

On the pattern of behaviour, the Minister has set out very clearly that the Government wish to rely on the independent Electoral Commission to appraise the outcome of the pilot schemes. But what we do not know—because the Government are not willing to set it out to this Committee, which it is asking to approve the principle of the pilots—is what it will appraise those pilot projects against. We do not know at this stage what the Government seek to achieve through the pilot projects. We therefore cannot assume that the Electoral Commission is in a position to give us the genuinely independent perspective that we expect of it.

Historically, there has been much debate about whether the Electoral Commission should be given a mandate by Parliament. One useful thing about such a mandate is that it would be able to say, for example, that a criterion for appraising pilots is the use of equality impact assessments to determine the impact of the pilots on people with learning disabilities or physical disabilities, on younger voters specifically, and on younger voters with learning disabilities, who may be a subset of such voters. Without any clear sense from the Government of what the pilots will seek to achieve and how that will be implemented consistently, it is difficult for the Committee to be confident that the pilots will genuinely contribute to the integrity of the poll.

[Paul Holmes]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Let us not forget that in very recent history the Government have completely ignored the view of the Electoral Commission anyway. When the Government said that they would not cancel local elections, and then did, and then got found out in court and did not defend the case, the Electoral Commission said repeatedly that it disagreed with the Government’s stance on the local elections because the Government had not consulted and had breached the general rule that EROs and local authorities should be given at least six months’ notice of a change of poll.

The Electoral Commission was very clear, and I think it went as far as condemning the Government’s decision, but the Government ignored it. The Minister can outline how the Electoral Commission will be consulted, but they have ignored it before and it is very likely—in fact, given the pattern of behaviour of the Secretary of State, it is almost certain—that the Government will find the answer that they want to find, regardless of what the Electoral Commission review says.

We remain sceptical. This is not personal against the Minister. I like the Minister intensely—[Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] I couldn’t think of another word. I like the Minister a lot, and I think she is a woman of integrity, but the pattern of behaviour from this Government is astounding, on consultation, on transparency and, actually, in Parliament. Ministers, who are governed by the ministerial code, have said that they will not do something and then gone ahead and done it anyway, in the cynical way that we have come to see from every Department in this Government. It is rotten from the top down.

On the pilots, the Minister has been clear that the parameters are not well established in the Bill and that she will want to come back with secondary legislation. Clause 20, “Power to pilot changes to the voter registration process”, states that the

“Secretary of State may by regulations make voter registration provision…in connection with…a register of parliamentary electors maintained under section 9 of RPA 1983”

and

“a register of local government electors”.

However, where it says that “regulations must specify”, there are certainly no parameters, and she is asking us to give the Government a blank cheque.

The Minister is asking us to approve pilots without any detail on what they may look like. She is also not saying how she will test whether those pilots are successful. When she winds up, will she outline to the Committee exactly what the parameters are for the pilots and the tests for what looks like success when they are finished?

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[David Simmonds]

My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne made the constructive suggestion that we proceed on the basis of local authority areas for the use of the electoral roll in the local poll so that everybody who is standing or voting in the election can have confidence that they will be treated equally. Earlier in our debates, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove set out her sympathy with the proposal for the pilots, but I am sure that no Member of this House would be content to lose narrowly in an election, only to discover that in their constituency—perhaps alone in the country—there had been a programme to auto-enrol a specific cohort of voters who had not been auto-enrolled in the same way in neighbouring constituencies or in the rest of the country. That would fundamentally call into question the integrity of the poll.

I know that the Government have had serious concerns and reflections internally following the allegations made at the Gorton and Denton by-election. I do not think that most of us accept that those allegations are correct. None the less, the level of doubt that has been cast on elements of the process is of concern to Members across the House. The Government should be in listening mode. They should listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne and should seek to do this properly, so that all voters and candidates in elections can have confidence that they will be treated equally and consistently across the country.

[Paul Holmes]

I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne for not responding to his very reasonable suggestion. If the Minister were to say that she wanted to base pilots across the country on a local authority area, I am sure that many local authorities would jump at the chance to be at the front of delivering it and would work with her to do so. However, it potentially calls into question the integrity of the polls when that is based on a certain characteristic, or on an area that does not necessarily cover the whole area in which people are entitled to vote.

There is a cross-boundary issue with general elections and local elections; my constituency has three local areas with three different EROs within its boundaries. The way in which the automatic registration pilots will go ahead is just not universal. I will therefore insist on pressing amendment 28 to a Division. We will also divide the Committee on clauses 20 to 25.

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[Paul Holmes]

I thank the Minister for outlining clauses 26 to 29. I believe that all parties represented on the Committee agree with devolution. The Minister outlined that there has been consultation with the chief electoral officer and officials in Northern Ireland, but given that we are entering a period of devolution, and of Governments, Cabinets, First Ministers and Members of Parliament across this great United Kingdom, I am slightly concerned that we have not had any detail about which relevant Cabinet Minister in Northern Ireland has been consulted on these proposals—not only in relation to the reports from the Electoral Commission that will be required, but on the Government’s proposed pilot in Northern Ireland. We have not heard what the democratically elected Executive, local Members of Parliament or local authorities in Northern Ireland think of that, and that concerns me.

I hope that the Minister might outline, perhaps with the help of her excellent officials, whether the political leads in Northern Ireland have come back with their views on the proposals. It is okay for officials to do so, but officials advise and Ministers decide—that is my old mantra. It is one thing for the chief electoral officer, with whom I have no issue whatsoever—he is doing an admirable job—to say that he is okay with the proposals, but I would have thought that the UK Government should have the consent of the Executive. It concerns me that we have not had such an assurance from the Minister today.

[David Simmonds]

Although we do not have a representative from Northern Ireland on the Committee, we have had a number of debates in which a variety of these issues have been raised, and we took evidence on them specifically. The electoral system, registration system and arrangements for elections have been different in Northern Ireland for some time anyway, and that reflects part of the fairly complex political history of that part of our United Kingdom. One of the commonalities that we have with Ireland is the ability of people there to cast their vote in general elections in the United Kingdom and vice versa.

Will the Minister set out—perhaps my hon. Friend agrees with me that we need a bit more detail on this—what conversations have happened not just with the Northern Ireland Executive but with the Government of Ireland? A number of provisions mean that the Province, in which people will have the ability to vote as a United Kingdom voter and also, potentially, in Ireland, especially if they are dual electors, will have different electoral rules. It is particularly important that that is fully considered, especially before pilots, which might make further changes, are implemented without the element of local consent.

[Paul Holmes]

My hon. Friend raises a good point that I had not thought of, as is normally the case. I am concerned that the political leadership have not given their sign-off or their thoughts, and that this Committee should be given the views of the Northern Ireland Administration. Having briefly served as a shadow Northern Ireland Minister, I understand the differences and the unique nature of the politics of Northern Ireland, and he is right to say that people who live in Northern Ireland could be eligible to vote in a number of elections in different countries. When it comes to the Province, it is therefore important that we get clarity on how the pilot, and the lack of information about it, might affect the different rules in different countries.

We remain concerned. As with the last group of amendments and clauses, there is no detail on what the pilots might look like, particularly under clause 28. In her last winding-up speech, the Minister stated that the Government are designing the pilots and are looking at how to make them the best they can be, but a Government propose things, and they should know what they want a pilot to look like in order to get the policy outcome before they come to this House and expect us to approve legislation. I say gently to the Minister that if the Government have a policy they want to achieve, they should have some idea about how they will get there and what a pilot might look like.

Clause 28, on the power to pilot proposals under clause 26, does not really contain any detail as to what such pilots might look like. Under clause 29,

“If pilot regulations are made, the Electoral Commission must…prepare a report on the pilot regulations, and…before the date specified under section 28(4), give a copy of the report to the Secretary of State and to the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland.”

In none of the proposals in the Bill is the First Minister of Northern Ireland, or the relevant Cabinet Minister in the Executive, included in any reporting mechanisms; it is only the Secretary of State and the chief electoral officer. If we want to harness great cross-border relations, it is very important that the democratically elected devolved Government have some kind of say, even if it is after the fact and about whether they think it was a success.

We have a number of concerns about the holes in these clauses, and we look to see what reassurances the Minister can give us before we decide whether to press them to a Division.