Elections: Personation

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I remember that election well: my majority was 808. My noble friend raises the important issue of students. There were many allegations that some students at the last election voted twice. This issue was raised by Ministers with the appropriate body within the National Police Council, which is pursuing it. There is, I think, a small number of issues outstanding. In many cases, where a student voted twice, on one occasion it would have been as a proxy for another student.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, is this not one of the many challenges, with associated costs, that would be very simply addressed by ID cards? That is the solution. Why did the coalition Government allow themselves to be led by the nose by the Liberal Democrats and abolish the ID cards that had already been introduced?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think that the commitment to abolish ID cards was in my party’s manifesto in 2010, as well as in that of the Liberal Democrats. The House will know that the Government are not minded to introduce ID cards. We are making good progress in reducing electoral ballot fraud through voter ID and I think that that is a more proportionate solution than the one proposed by the noble Lord.