Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Fletcher and Chloe Smith

Monday 13th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

11. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to ensure cross-Government delivery of the national disability strategy.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chloe Smith)]

The entire Government are committed to transforming the everyday lives of disabled people through the national disability strategy because we want to build back better and fairer. A number of commitments have already been delivered. I chair quarterly meetings with the ministerial disability champions to drive progress.

[Mark Fletcher]

Increasing employment opportunities is key to supporting independent living for disabled people and people with health conditions. Will the Minister reaffirm our commitment to supporting 1 million disabled people into work by 2027?

Elections Bill

Debate between Mark Fletcher and Chloe Smith

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I will make two points on that. The first is that we show identification in everyday life, and reasonably and proportionately so. For example, we show it when we pick up a parcel or apply for a range of other services. Let me give a word of reassurance to my right hon. Friend and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who is sitting behind him: what we have with this scheme is not a form of ID database, beyond, of course, that which is already there in the electoral registers. I offer that reassurance in response to an alternative argument that may come out in today’s debate compared with what we often hear from the left.

I am surprised that I need to use the words of a former Labour Government to say this, but I cannot do it plainer than this. When they introduced this policy in Northern Ireland in 2003, they said:

“If we believed that thousands of voters would not be able to vote because of this measure, we would not be introducing it at this time.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 April 2003; Vol. 646, c. 1248.]

The Electoral Commission also states:

“Since the introduction of photo ID in Northern Ireland there have been no reported cases of personation. Voters’ confidence that elections are well-run in Northern Ireland is consistently higher than in Great Britain, and there are virtually no allegations of electoral fraud at polling stations”.

Let me make some progress and set out what else is in this wide-ranging Bill. I must stress that it is not just in-person electoral fraud that this part of the Bill will combat, and that is important because criminals use all kinds of corrupt behaviour together, as we saw in Tower Hamlets and, sadly, elsewhere. Voting by post or by proxy are essential tools for supporting voters to exercise their rights, and they must remain available options for voters who may not wish to, or cannot, vote at a polling station. So this Bill also introduces sensible safeguards against the abuse of postal and proxy voting.

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that often the victims of postal vote harvesting are those who come from many of the groups that the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) mentioned, including those who do not have English as a first language, and that this is a good protection for them and for our democratic process?

[Chloe Smith]

I fear that that may be right. I know that my hon. Friend and others have experience, for example at council level, where they may have seen this happening at first hand. Today, I want to allow a Bill to make progress that will give confidence that a person’s vote is theirs alone, and that is vital. Did we not see that before when we introduced individual electoral registration? Voices were saying that it, too, would never work, but did we not see that it was about reducing the influence of the head of the household on who was allowed to register? That is an important point to remember.

The part of the Bill on postal and proxy voting includes new limits on the number of postal votes that may be handed in by any one individual, and a limit of four on the total number of electors for whom a person may act as a proxy. In order to tackle “vote harvesting”, the Bill is also making it an offence for political campaigners to handle postal votes issued to others, unless they are family members or carers of the voter.

Of course, stealing someone’s vote is not always done by personation or by taking someone’s ballot physically. As I mentioned, an equally sinister method that we have seen is people using intimidation, or pressuring people to cast their vote in a certain way or not to vote at all. That is known in the law as “undue influence”. The existing legislation on undue influence, which, again, originated in the 19th century, is difficult to interpret and enforce, so we are providing greater clarity, ensuring that there can be no doubt that it is an offence to intimidate, deceive, or cause harm to electors in order to influence their vote.

I have touched on the ways in which the Bill will combat the silencing of democratic voices by those seeking to influence or steal an individual’s vote, and I will now touch upon more ways in which the Bill will empower our citizens.