Elections Bill

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Steve Baker

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am clear that in speaking in support of the Bill I am standing overwhelmingly for my ethnic minority voters in Wycombe. I am absolutely clear about that in my mind. I am clear that they are the most strident supporters I have on this matter in my constituency.

I will not repeat the matters that I raised on 19 December, because that took several times longer than the time I have remaining, so I will point out five areas where the Bill could go further. The first is that many people are incorrectly listed on the electoral roll, entitling them to vote. Many of the issues are already illegal, but there is a strong argument that if the electoral roll was much more tightly governed, the opportunity for criminality, and particularly the misuse of postal votes, would be reduced.

There needs to be a national check for uniqueness, but without a national database. I am grateful to the Electoral Commission for meeting me; I have shown it a technique that could be used with a kind of digital fingerprint to guarantee uniqueness. We need to ensure that people only vote once in the UK. I have seen a WhatsApp message where somebody said, “I have voted in Birmingham; I am now coming to Wycombe to vote against Baker.” I do not mind people voting against me if they are so convicted, as it were, but I do mind them voting twice.

The second point is that people register to vote at an address where they do not reside. I could take Members to a small Edwardian three-bedroom house in Wycombe where 12 electors are registered to vote. We absolutely know that they do not reside there. It is very important that people register to vote only where they reside. It is also important that people do not end up abusing the postal vote system by applying for a postal vote on someone’s behalf and then casting it without their knowledge. We also can give examples of where that can be done, although I do not have time now.

Thirdly, there are instances where foreign nationals here legally in the UK—very welcome they are, too—and with a national insurance number are not entitled to vote. We have examples of some people of Turkish nationality and some EU nationals. In some cases, people just do not know that they are not entitled to vote in a national election. We need to ensure that we tell them. I could give anecdotes of people who find they have inadvertently voted and wished they had not, because they had no intention of breaking the law, so we need to educate them.

Fourthly, I realise and accept that at this stage the Minister almost certainly cannot do anything about the national uniqueness of the electoral roll—I put that on the record so that we can come back to it—but this is an area where I think he could go further. When someone wishes to make an objection to someone’s name being on the roll at a particular address, the name of the objector must be disclosed. That is a reasonable principle of justice to ensure that the accused knows the name of their accuser. The point for me is about when their name is disclosed. It seems that just as an accused person is revealed when they are charged—not when they are arrested—so it could be the case that a person challenging the electoral roll is named publicly only at the moment when someone is charged so that that person knows who their accuser is for the purposes of the criminal justice system and the accuser does not end up exposed to intimidation for challenging registrations on the electoral roll. I make that case because such challenges need to be made and there is a problem with people either not making them or making them and subsequently feeling they were or could have been intimidated.

Finally, the Minister needs to do much more to educate voters about what the law is. For example, I am sorry to say that we cannot assume that just because a postal vote is completed by an elector in their own home, it has been completed freely. I know of one lady from an ethnic minority community who asked to cancel her postal vote because it had been taken from her and given to a candidate. I personally reported that candidate to the police. That is just one example concerning the treatment of women, which is not equal everywhere. In particular, I fear that women are not being given the opportunity to cast their vote freely. However they choose to vote, they should have their choice. In so far as it is up to me, I am not having this country go back to the pre-suffragette era in which women’s votes were abused. That requires us to be realistic and understand that some women cast their votes at home under duress.

I welcome the Bill and am grateful to the Minister, who will have my full support. Let us not listen to some of the nonsense we have heard today.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise to colleagues for this brief intervention, but I have heard that the all-party parliamentary China group has invited the ambassador of China on to the estate next week. As one of many in this place who has been sanctioned by the Chinese Government, I find that reprehensible, because Mr Speaker himself condemned the sanctioning of Members of Parliament here in very strict terms.

I have notified the chair of the all-party group, my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), as well as the vice-chair, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who I see in his place. I wonder if you would give your view, Mr Deputy Speaker, about whether such a visit should happen. The representative of the Government who have sanctioned us, trolled us, broken some of our email accounts and taken our characters around the world is coming to Parliament next week, and I think that is unfathomable.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Steve Baker

3rd reading
Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), particularly as he referred to my new clauses—although not all of them, it has to be said. He referred to one of them, but there are two more. The new clauses are very clear, and I shall speak to them this evening. New clause 14 would require the cash sale of pets to be banned so that the only way for people to do those sales would be by cheque or bank transfer. That would mean that pet sellers could be tracked and the owners identified. This has become too easy a business.

New clause 15 would make it compulsory for pets that have to be microchipped to be scanned as well by vets, to check that the microchip number is registered on an approved database and that it confirms the correct registered keeper. New clause 16 would make the offence of pet theft a specific category of crime, as the right hon. Member for Tottenham said, carrying a much more significant set of fines and even incarceration.

[Mr Steve Baker]

Of course I share my right hon. Friend’s sentiment, but I was a bit concerned when I read his new clause about microchips. Is it really going to end up creating offences for vets? I would have thought they already had enough on their plates in often difficult and emotional circumstances.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

That may be the case, but the reality is that, by law, dogs must be microchipped. It makes no sense to microchip a dog, only for some vets not to scan them. That would mean that people who had stolen dogs could simply take them to the vet of their choice, knowing that they would not be scanned. The point is that if we have an offence, we must follow it through. Those pets must be scanned; otherwise, they will get stolen and sold without redress.

Those were the three areas that were raised with me, and many of my colleagues and friends who have signed these new clauses have also faced the same concerns. There has been a staggering welling up of anger, concern and worry about what might happen to people’s pets. There are some who will not go on walks with their dogs at the moment for fear of what might happen. It is important for the Government to recognise that this is a major concern.