Elections: May 2021

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

Yes, I can give that commitment. As the House will, I hope, have heard me say clearly today, I am not saying that the polls are to be postponed or that they should be postponed; we are carefully keeping the situation under review. I hope that, in answer to several questions today, I have been able clearly to make the point that that needs to be done carefully and that that is what we are doing.

My hon. Friend makes the excellent additional point that we cannot take this lightly. We have already postponed a set of elections once; we cannot postpone democracy forever. Voters expect to be able to have their choice and they shall have their choice. We have to be able to apply ourselves to running covid-secure elections, which is precisely what the comprehensive set of preparations that I have been leading has been doing, and I will be able to keep the House updated on that basis.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]]

I strongly support the Government’s plan to go ahead with the May elections, which are crucial to our democracy. Given that many more people may well need or want a postal vote, will the Minister bring forward, before the elections, measures for enhanced security? There are worries about fraud and it is surely important that anyone who exercises a postal vote should have just the one vote and they should make the decision.

[Chloe Smith]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s vigilance on electoral fraud, which is extremely important. We all want all forms of voting to be secure, and it is helpful of him to point out the fact that postal and proxy voting should be just as secure as when someone casts their vote in person at a polling station. In respect of both the elections we are discussing today and future elections, this issue is a top priority of mine. My right hon. Friend can look forward to the measures that I will bring forward, in line with the Conservative party manifesto, to improve the security of our postal and proxy voting systems and some other aspects of electoral integrity. We look forward to much longer discussions on those issues.