Draft Representation of the People (Proxy Vote Applications) (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2022 General Committees

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Dr Huq. I, too, offer my condolences to the Minister for Levelling Up Communities, the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch). I have been in touch with her personally to do so, but I would like to put that on the record as well.

The Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Walsall North, said earlier that it is essential to democracy that people should be able to cast their votes without impediment, and of course I agree with that. The regulations are sensible and unobjectionable in the circumstances. They will of course apply to the local elections, which are due to take place in Scotland at the beginning of May. It is only right that the Government should act to preserve the voting rights of people who are self-isolating with coronavirus, but we in the SNP continue to be concerned that, at the same time, the Government are undermining the right of millions of people in this country to vote through the Elections Bill. Their own figures show that 2.1 million people would be unable to vote under their proposals in that Bill.

We are already in a situation whereby 17% of the voting-age population across the United Kingdom are not registered to vote, so increasing the number of those who are ineligible to vote, and making it harder for those currently not registered to vote, is a step in the wrong direction. Of course, the Elections Bill will also make it harder for partially sighted and blind people to vote independently and secretly, and it was a matter of disappointment that the amendments tabled by my party and the Labour party were rejected—those amendments were recommended by the Royal National Institute of Blind People. Although acting to preserve the rights of voters, especially the self-isolating, throughout the remainder of the pandemic—I hope we are at its tail end—is right and necessary, we in the SNP remain very concerned about the attack on the right to vote in the Elections Bill.