Voter ID Pilot Schemes

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Mark Harper

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ellie Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is right that the Electoral Reform Society has criticised the scheme, stating that electoral fraud at the ballot box

“is an incredibly rare crime because it is such a slow, clunky way to steal an election—and requires levels of organisation that would be easy to spot and prevent.”

I will talk about protected characteristics later in my speech.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I rise to speak only because the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) mentioned the Electoral Reform Society. It is worth putting it on the record that after the election the Electoral Reform Society alleged, early in the day, that 4,000 people had been turned away from voting. It turns out that that number was massively overstated; the real number was actually, at most, 340. That was beautifully demolished by the Radio 4 programme “More or Less”. It is worth putting it on the record that the ERS was not very accurate in its analysis.

[Ellie Reeves]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for those points, but the reality is that it is very difficult to monitor how many people were disenfranchised, because some people did not turn out to vote or left the queues. That was certainly the experience in my constituency, which I will talk about later. I expect that the figure probably is quite a lot higher than the 300 that has been quoted.

The introduction of voter ID laws would make no difference to allegations of fraud with postal votes, proxy votes, breaches of secrecy, tampering with ballot papers, bribery, undue influence or electoral expenditure, which are arguably the areas where most electoral offences occur. Let me repeat: any attempted voter fraud or impersonation is wrong and should be thoroughly investigated, but the figures relating to alleged fraud at polling stations do not point to any widespread issue or problem relating to impersonation. An overhaul of the voting procedure by introducing identification requirements has been a step too far.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ellie Reeves]

I agree that the scheme seems to disenfranchise certain groups, and that is something we should all be very worried about. The Labour party has been clear, repeatedly, that we believe the pilot to be misguided. I understand that more than 40 campaign groups that share our view have contacted the Cabinet Office, calling on the Government to drop any further roll-out.

[Mr Harper]

On that point, will the hon. Lady give way? Will she indulge me?

[Ellie Reeves]

I will give way briefly, but I do want to make some progress.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady and I promise that I will not intervene again. She mentions the Labour party. Why is it that she does not think people should have to prove their ID when they are voting in public elections, yet my understanding is—although I am obviously not an expert—that the Labour party in internal party elections, such as those for selecting candidates, insists that people have to show ID to prove who they are? Is that not a little hypocritical?

[Ellie Reeves]

It is right when people vote in internal Labour party elections that they can demonstrate that they are a Labour party member. That is completely different from someone exercising their democratic and fundamental right to vote in elections for their representatives in local government or in Parliament. The analogy is misguided and wrong.

When the issue of the pilot schemes was recently raised at Cabinet Office questions, the Minister suggested that the pilot was deemed by the Department to be a success. However, there is no doubt that voters were denied votes and that voters were put off—disproportionately so, in comparison with previous reports of voter fraud. Can a flagrant disregard for disenfranchising voters really be regarded as a success? In the year of celebrations marking the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918 and women being entitled to vote, do we really think it is appropriate to advocate a scheme that has irrefutably excluded some voters?

Turnout at general elections has faltered over the past 25 years and it was encouraging to see a 2.5% increase in votes cast at the 2017 snap election. I am concerned that, were the scheme to be rolled out further, we would see greater issues at the next general election.