Draft Representation of the People (Overseas Electors etc.) (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023 Draft Representation of the People (Overseas Electors etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 General Committees

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank the Minister for his opening remarks. He is right to highlight some of the areas where the Government feel they have been robust on this matter.

We should celebrate Britain as a country with strong and historical international links, and that millions of British citizens call another country their home. Overseas voting provides an important link for British citizens abroad, across the world. We on this side of the Committee are clear that those who have a strong connection to this country and their community should still have a say in how it is run. We do not oppose the principle of overseas voting and giving citizens who still have a strong connection to the UK a voice in our elections, and that includes people who still have a strong connection to our local services and communities, but we need to consider it carefully—[Interruption.] Is that my timer?

Like many hon. and right hon. Members in this House, I am proud to represent the community that I grew up in. I know how important it is that those who live in our area, who pay their taxes and are part of the community, feel represented. As much as we support the rights of overseas voters, it would be wrong if people with little connection to this country, who may have moved a long time ago and not used any services or paid any taxes in decades, diminished the voice of my constituents and others across the country. We do not think that is right, and it is not in line with the principles of a representative democracy.

We must consider how we strike a balance in our rules. There are voters who still feel a connection to the UK despite living away from it for 30, 40 or many more years, but the policy of removing the cap on this important principle will undermine the balance between enfranchising those people and maintaining integrity in our democracy. Removing the cap will reduce the voice of people who live here, work hard here and contribute to their community, and open up our system to abuse. That is why the Opposition will oppose the regulations. Although I do not think that there is a moral disagreement about some of the issues with votes for life, I fear that the risk of abuse of the system proposed by the Government is far too great.

First, the registration rules proposed by regulation 26H mean that some overseas voters require only the attestation of the identity and past location of another overseas voter. I hear the Minister outlining that there will be additional data material to help to prove an identity. We understand that it may be difficult for legitimate overseas voters to verify their identity, but there seems to be a risk of manipulation of the system to allow those eligible for the scheme to have their pick of which seats they want to vote in.

We have to consider the fact that under our first-past-the-post system, every single vote has a massive influence. Some 30 seats were decided by fewer than 1,000 votes at the last general election. While I am sure that very few will attempt to abuse the system in that way, it could have a large impact on marginal seats when votes are added up around the world. When we think about those seats, we think about many colleagues in this room, although my majority is higher than 1,000. Can the Minister assure me that there will be additional safeguards to prevent fraud? I understand that there is a tight limit on attestation, and that those attesting for another voter will need to sign a declaration of their truthfulness, which is right; but those measures may not be enough to prevent people from trying to abuse the system in a way that could impact the next general election.

The new rules also create a huge loophole in our donation laws. The current rules on UK donations mean that those who donate more than £500 must be on the electoral register. We have to be honest and say that we cannot pretend that the current system is perfect, but it is an important safeguard against money flooding into our political system from foreign and hostile states. Our current system is one where those who are on the register have a clear and recent link to the UK. We think that opening the electoral register as widely as the Government are doing today goes far beyond what our current donation rules were set up to do. It will allow those with tenuous links to the UK, who have spent most of their lives in states that may even be openly hostile to our aims, the right to massively influence our system. The reality is that it will be impossible to ensure that the huge numbers of potential donors in our system are not vulnerable to manipulation by hostile actors. There is already clear evidence of attempts by these actors to influence UK democracy. It will also make enforcement of our rules much harder, given the difficulties that we may face in challenging those who fall foul of donation laws while in another jurisdiction.

The Government know the risk that those hostile actors pose to the UK and our allies. Just this year, we have seen the attack on Britain’s Electoral Commission, although I am happy to hear that the Minister will be meeting the Electoral Commission soon. We have also seen it clearly happen in Ukraine. Therefore, it is beyond belief that the Government are seeking to risk opening up our system at such a critical time for our world.

I know that there are British citizens who still feel a connection to the UK, and they will welcome this rule change, but this rule will also be welcomed by those who want to undermine our democracy and funnel money into our politics. We must not allow that to happen. We must strike the right balance to empower voters without enabling undue influence, but I am afraid that these regulations go nowhere far enough to doing that. I hope that the Minister will think again and that everyone will oppose the regulations today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

I shall deal first, if the shadow Minister will forgive me, to the comments made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk. On the basis of the data compiled after a very thorough assessment of the May local elections, I dispute fundamentally that there is any evidence that it has been made harder for people to vote. Our system has been made more robust and more resilient to meet the challenges of the time. That the Government have some sort of malign intent to suppress turnout or legislation is a trope that has been trotted out by several people involved in politics in recent times. The hon. Gentleman is smiling. I would call him a friend—we were in the same 2015 intake—but such a mindset is entirely alien to our history and to our processes in all the reforms to widen representation, going back to 1832, 1867 and other Acts. We need to ensure that our democracy is robust and resilient to challenge and that it meets the purpose of modern times, and I refute wholeheartedly any idea of suppression, gerrymandering or falsification, or the sorts of things that sit alongside that.

I thank my shadow, the hon. Member for Vauxhall for—I hope she will not take this the wrong way—the gentle and considered way that she approached this debate. I very much welcome her and her party’s support for the broad principles that underpin the regulations. She is absolutely right to ask the questions that she has, and I will endeavour to, if not answer, then certainly address them.

I am tempted to say, on the broader of question whether this will work, the answer is, in essence, this: we believe that it will. A huge amount of resource, time and engagement has been spent to arrive at this position. This is not a “back of a fag packet” piece of legislation. I know the hon. Lady knows that, and she was not suggesting that it was. However, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. As we saw in the May elections, quite a lot of the things that people were concerned about with regard to voter ID did not come to pass. Some issues have manifested themselves, however, and work needs to be done. This is an iterative and organic process; it will be reviewed and it is able to be tweaked and changed. I am grateful that any future tweaks and changes by this Government or a subsequent Government will be done from the starting point that the broad principle of democratic inclusion is enshrined.

I think it is worth remembering that what we are doing here is not particularly novel. The 15-year qualification is an entirely arbitrary figure. Other democracies have all sorts of conditions, and Canada, France, Estonia and the USA have no limits in their voting rights. We are not breaking new ground here as a point of democratic principle.

False attestation is a criminal offence. People will need to know that, and the full weight of the law will be brought to bear on people who falsely attest. Let us be absolutely honest: we fool our constituents if we maintain that by the passing of a statutory instrument or piece of legislation, we, with a stroke of a pen, remove human instinct and human nature. Is somebody going to do a false attestation? A pound to a penny, somebody will. If we discover them, the full weight of the law will be deployed against them. Tweaks and changes can be made in order to respond to that, but fear of the bad should not stop us trying to do some good. I would argue that what we are trying to do this afternoon is some good.

The hon. Member for Vauxhall raised a really important question when she asked whether somebody can pick a seat: “I support party X, and this seat is particularly marginal, so I’m going to pretend that I live there.” Well, they could try to pretend to live there, but they would not get on the register and would not get a ballot, because they would have no proof at all of being a resident there at any time or of having any connection to the place. That will have to be monitored. I make the pledge that those who are involved in our electoral processes, including the Government from a policy point of view, will look at that. The impact on marginal seats—though I do not think the seat of the hon. Member for Vauxhall is marginal—

[Florence Eshalomi]

Every seat is marginal.

[Simon Hoare]

I do not think my seat is marginal—I add the caveat of “currently”—but we shall see what happens.

With regard to fraud, the hon. Lady makes an important point. We want our elections to be clean. Why do we want that? These are important principles. We want elections to be clean because we want the victors to understand that their victory is legitimate. More importantly, we need the defeated to understand—[Interruption.] That was a very peculiar noise of support, but I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington for it. I am not quite sure if there are any tablets for that, but she was a nurse, so she may have better news on that than I do.

Marginality is an important issue, and as I say, proof of residence and connection will be important. Party donations are exactly the same. Illegal and proxy donations are illegal now. The parties that receive donations have to go through due diligence and checks, and the Electoral Commission provides overview. The National Security Act 2023 is very welcome because it addresses in great part the point that the hon. Member for Vauxhall rightly made. That Act and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 create data-sharing opportunities between a raft of organisations, including Companies House and the Electoral Commission. They are hugely important in trying to minimise—we hope to obliterate, though I make the point again about human nature—this problem. The levers and buttons to push to tell against this sort of behaviour and bring serious offence charges against perpetrators are there. The Electoral Commission itself publishes quarterly returns.

Having addressed the points that the hon. Lady rightly, sensibly and properly asked, I hope I have been able to persuade her and her not to divide the Committee, but that is entirely up to her. A lot of work and thought by officials and others has gone into the instrument to make it, as I say, resilient, fair and robust. I believe we have achieved that, and I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put.