Voter ID Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Walney
Main Page: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Walney's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(1 year, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy noble friend is absolutely right: those measures were brought in in Northern Ireland by the Labour Government in 2003. They have been highly successful, and, in fact, the people of Northern Ireland have a higher rate of satisfaction with their electoral system than we do in England.
My Lords, are the Government alive to the prospect that they have set the bar too high for forms of photo ID for younger people in particular? The chance that someone would be so keen to vote fraudulently that they would make a fraudulent Oyster ID card as an 18-plus as a way to gain access to a polling station is vanishingly small. In that review, will they be alive to widening out the forms of photo ID for younger people?
Yes, obviously, but it is interesting that, when the research was done on the number of people in this country who had photo ID, it was higher for younger people. It was 98% for the whole of the country, but 99% for young people between 18 and 25. But, yes, we will look at that. I know that the Oyster card has been an issue, but there is a real reason. Oyster cards for younger people have a different process which is not as secure as that for older people’s Oyster cards.