Elections Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman makes that point, because I know a number of hon. Members care about it, and rightly so. I can reassure him and everybody here today that I have been working with the RNIB for months and indeed years to make the improvements we need to the system for allowing blind and partially sighted voters to cast their vote. In answer to his specific question, I do not think that the measures in this Bill weaken that support; I think they strengthen it, by ensuring that a wider range of voters with disabilities—or, should I say, a wider range of disabilities—may be properly supported at the polling station. That is important, as we would not wish some to be unsupported by a phrasing in legislation that is now outdated and overly narrow—that is what our reform seeks to tackle.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

On the Minister’s point about empowering citizens, she will be aware of reforms in Wales and Scotland whereby any legal citizen, no matter their nationality, can vote in our respective parliamentary elections and local elections. This Bill seems to be limiting the ability of European nationals to vote in local elections in England and in Westminster elections. Why is Westminster going on a totally different path from Wales and Scotland?

[Chloe Smith]

I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman has raised that point, because there are two things to be said. The first, which I shall come to shortly in my remarks, is about how we are updating the franchise to reflect the position of EU citizens. The other important thing, which is worth making clear at this juncture, is that parts of the devolution settlements apply to electoral policy and so it is important to be clear that in this Bill we are looking at measures that will apply UK-wide—a full analysis is available, of course, in the Bill documents. That means we will have consistency at parliamentary elections, but a natural consequence of devolution is that there may be differences at other levels. I think we would both accept that and seek to work to make those arrangements a success for voters who may experience both sets of arrangements and for the hard-working election staff who may administer both sets.

As I have completed my remarks on overseas electors, I shall carry on moving through the Bill. At this point, I wish to address the Liberal Democrats’ reasoned amendment. It may come as little surprise that, regrettably, they take two opposite positions in one amendment: on the one hand they would like British citizens to participate more—indeed, that was their manifesto position—and on the other hand they do not. The official policy of the Liberal Democrats is to support votes for life, and the policy paper that they published in July 2019 said:

“There is no reason why”

expats

“should be treated any differently to those who continue to live in the UK.”

I agree. The Bill puts in place tougher measures against foreign interference and foreign money, but overseas British citizens are just that—British—and are therefore able both to vote and to donate. There is a long-standing principle, originally recommended by the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 1998, that permissible donors are those on the UK electoral register.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. In fact, the Bill contains no details about how local authorities are going to roll out this so-called voter ID, which, as she points out, is not free: it will cost the taxpayer money. This is an expensive waste of taxpayers’ money trying to look for a problem to solve.

We know fine well that voter ID will be an additional barrier for voters. It will be an additional barrier even for the voters that have the relevant ID, because they have to remember to take it with them. We are all Members of Parliament—we all go out and campaign—and we know fine well that sometimes on a wet and rainy Thursday it is awfully difficult to get voters down to the polling station. We should be making sure that our elections take place on public holidays. We should be exploring the idea of weekend voting. We should be looking at ways of modernising our democracy for the 21st century. This Elections Bill does nothing to modernise and everything to put barriers up to participation. The 160 pages of this Bill were written during a global pandemic. At a time when our doctors and nurses were in our hospitals wearing bin bags because of a lack of personal protection equipment, this Government were drawing up legislation to put barriers up to democracy, wasting taxpayers’ money on expensive policies designed to benefit the Conservative party.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. Does she agree that it is important not just to look at the Bill in isolation? When we add it to things such as the boundary review and the scrapping of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, those of us who are cynically minded see a plan to skew the next election.