Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Fabricant and Alex Norris

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend makes an important point and the basic principle is that we want to ensure that the ballot box is sacrosanct and that the process has integrity, so when people go to vote, it works.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Happy new year, Mr Speaker, to you and to all of our colleagues.

[Michael Fabricant]

To you too, and thank you.

[Alex Norris]

You are very welcome.

Those who set the standards for our elections, the Electoral Commission, thinks that May is too soon for voter ID reforms, and those who have to implement them, our electoral administrators, say the same. There are just 115 days until the local elections and the Minister seems to put a lot of stock in a campaign that is only starting today. The Minister did not address in his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) nor in the statutory instrument debate what it is in his judgment that he believes supersedes the views of those who actually have to make this happen.