Sue Gray Report

Nick Smith Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What the country needs now is the UK Government working with our friends and partners to stand up to Vladimir Putin and to make sure that we have a strong package of sanctions. That is what we are doing.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister sets the culture at No. 10. Why does he think staff members there felt unable to raise their concerns about the bad behaviours reported today?

[The Prime Minister]

That is one of the recommendations of the Sue Gray inquiry that we are going to take up to make sure that nobody should feel that in No. 10. That is why we are going to review the code to ensure that nobody feels that they have any inhibition on coming forward with any complaint that they may have.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

5. When the Government plan to bring forward legislative proposals to reform public procurement.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

7. When the Government plan to bring forward legislative proposals to reform public procurement.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

16. When the Government plan to bring forward legislative proposals to reform public procurement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis]

The Conservative party is a party of free trade and a free economy. I do not know about the Labour party. We are improving procurement and thereby having a major effect on the economy. The hon. Member, like everyone else, will have to wait for the details of how the new rules will be implemented and how they will work, but, through a Green Paper, we have asked everyone to feed in their ideas and suggestions for detailed policies. Based on that, a Bill is currently being prepared for introduction to Parliament and I know that the hon. Member will look forward to that.

[Nick Smith]

Given that the Government’s VIP lane for personal protective equipment contracts has been ruled unlawful, will there be immediate publication of contracts after emergency procurement to restore faith in the system? It would help avoid having the Government hauled so embarrassingly through the courts.

[Michael Ellis]

I do not accept that characterisation of any technical breaches that may have occurred. If the hon. Member looks at the judgment, he will see that the court ruled yesterday that the Government’s industry call to arms was open, transparent and justified in a time of national emergency. Actually, the court found that it was highly unlikely that the outcome would have been substantially different if a different assessment process had been followed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 15 December.

[The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)]

I am sure the whole House will want to join me in wishing you, Mr Speaker, and all members of staff—and indeed all Members—a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Members from across the House will also want to join me in sending our warmest wishes to all our armed forces, all members of the emergency services and all health and care workers, especially those who will be working over Christmas, not least on our national mission to get boosted now.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Nick Smith]

I congratulate the Prime Minister and his wife on the birth of their baby daughter. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Last week was crime week. Was it a success for you, Prime Minister?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. Yes, it was, because last week we showed that we are not only the party that is putting in the resources to fight crime, with 10,000 more police already recruited, but the party that is finally getting tough on the drugs gangs that blight the lives of children and communities up and down this country. We will not tolerate middle-class drug use any more than any other kind of drug use.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, but given retirements and other departures, some new Members are essential to keep the expertise and the outlook of the Lords fresh. We continue to support and encourage the policy of Members of the House of Lords retiring. The Government’s 2019 manifesto, of which he will be aware, committed to looking at the role of the Lords, but any reform needs to be considered carefully and not done on a piecemeal basis.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

3. If he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of the findings of Transparency International’s report, “Track and Trace”, published April 2021.

[The Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)]

The Government recognise the importance of maintaining public confidence in how we manage taxpayers’ money. We are taking steps to improve the processes already in place and to ensure that public spending is fair and transparent. Proposals in our December 2020 Green Paper aim to improve transparency in procurement across the public sector and include specific measures to strengthen transparency through the commercial lifecycle from planning to procurement, contract award, performance and completion. We will publish our response to the consultation shortly.

[Nick Smith]

Test and Trace has been muddled and expensive. Along with personal protective equipment provision, it has been a profiteers’ paradise for some. After inflation, NHS workers got no pay rise, yet Deloitte’s partners got 14%. We need answers: who did what and for how much? Does the Minister agree that the terms of reference for the covid public inquiry should include an analysis of the super-profits and juicy contracts for middlemen that have undoubtedly been made, so that the public can consider what opportunists have enjoyed at all our expense?

[Michael Ellis]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the National Audit Office noted that it

“found that the ministers had properly declared their interests, and…found no evidence of their involvement in procurement decisions or contract management.”

No PPE contracts were awarded by reason of who referred them. Clearly, in a national emergency, it is right that we as a nation can procure at speed. That ability has been critical in providing the emergency response that was needed. Those mechanisms predate the pandemic; they were not created for the pandemic. The public are right to demand that we spend our money with car—and, unlike Labour Governments, we do that. Proposals in the Green Paper on reforming public procurement aim to improve transparency, and we will continue to do that.

AUKUS

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. The whole Indo-Pacific tilt, of which this is a part, is a recognition of the fact that the CPTPP area my hon. Friend talks about is a £9 trillion trade area in which the UK has an increasing diplomatic and commercial presence.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I welcome the statement. China’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region can be destabilising, particularly in the South China sea. What support will be given to Taiwan at this difficult time?

[The Prime Minister]

We vindicate international law. One of the reasons we have sent the carrier strike group to that part of the world is to make that point.

Elections Bill (Second sitting)

Nick Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

[The Chair]

--- Later in debate ---

[Fleur Anderson]

[Nick Smith]

[Peter Gibson]

Elections Bill (First sitting)

Nick Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Chloe Smith]

Q Thank you very much indeed. I have a brief question for both Gillian and Assistant Chief Constable Cann. Gillian, thank you very much for joining us; it is good to see you again. We have done some work together, because Peterborough was part of early pilots on how to tackle electoral fraud, and you took forward measures about postal and proxy voting. With reference to the measures in the Bill—for example, clause 6, introducing the requirement of secrecy for postal votes—could you explain to us the problems you encountered, how you tried to deal with them and how you think the Bill will affect that?

Welcome and thank you to ACC Cann, as well. Given that electoral law can be a relatively niche area within policing, can you tell us how the wider profession works to ensure that the right knowledge, training and capacity are in place in local forces to enable them to play the role that is needed from the police?

Gillian Beasley: I will start by saying that we have a very close relationship with the police in Peterborough and our electoral integrity plan is co-produced between us and them. Our police, as well as our electoral services team, have a really good and detailed understanding of the electoral offences in law. There is a lot of co-operation there, which has helped us to home in on where integrity is at risk.

First, I would say that we have seen less personation in polling stations in the recent past. Probably our last prosecution was some years ago, and that is because there are some tight measures not only in polling stations, but around ensuring that we have a good electoral register. We go through our electoral register very carefully, removing duplicate names, and we visit a lot of premises where there are a number of people registered or where we are told there is an empty property, to ensure that they are the right people and that they are real people. Of course, the individual voter registration division has helped tremendously with that.

Where we have issues, as the Minister knows, is in postal voting. That is where our concerns are. The allegations we tend to get are around harvesting. They are allegations of people going into properties where people live—they are proper voters who have applied for a postal vote—and getting that person to make a declaration and signature with date of birth, but not fill the ballot paper. Those are then taken away and the proxies put against the relevant candidate. Those are the allegations. We get allegations about those being taken from properties, and where we get those allegations, we work together with the police in joint operations to visit those premises and make it absolutely clear that there is no tolerance for that and that those properties will be raided. We have never had any prosecutions for that, but we have made a clear statement about not tolerating that kind of behaviour.

The provision on not handing your postal vote to a campaigner is welcome. We will use that as a good communications tool to say to people, “Your vote is your vote. It is important that you post your vote or take it into a polling station.” The restrictions on how many postal votes can go into polling stations is a good provision, and documenting who is going in with those postal votes is important. Harvesting those votes will now be an offence, and although it will be difficult evidentially to get people to make those allegations, to stand by them and to go to court, nevertheless as returning officers we can do some important publicity around that fact: “This is your vote, you must keep it and it is a criminal offence if somebody takes it from you.” I see some strength there, and I support those provisions.

The other area I think is interesting is around undue influence. That is by far the most difficult; we hear allegations, but it is difficult for people who are subject to whatever form of undue influence or intimidation it may be to feel confident to come forward, give evidence and take that through to a court process. We encourage people to do that, but it is still difficult for them.

The change in the provision on undue influence, where you induce or compel somebody not to vote at all, is important; that covers the point that was made about collecting votes where they have not even been marked. My issue as a returning officer is that I send out thousands and thousands of postal votes, and we get them carefully delivered to the correct premises, but what happens behind those closed doors? It is about getting people to confidently give evidence if they are subject to undue influence or somebody comes and tries to take their vote. As I say, we have a really good relationship with the police, who are prepared to take forward and understand the offences. There is a joint communications plan between us and the police telling people that we will take it seriously, take cases forward and investigate every single allegation that is made, but it is still very difficult to get people confident enough to come forward with those kinds of allegations.

Assistant Chief Constable Cann: In terms of developing police knowledge and capacity, I like the description of electoral law being a niche area. I think that is accurate. The RPA is not a widely known piece of legislation among police officers.

One of the reasons that the national portfolio that I lead was created was to raise awareness through some degree of central co-ordination and training across police forces. One of the first things that we recognise is that we are not on our own with this. Gillian has spoken very well about the importance of partnership working between the police, the Association of Electoral Administrators, administrators more locally, the Electoral Commission, the CPS, the parties themselves and Royal Mail. We form strong partnership relationships with a whole range of people, which helps to build capacity and capability within the police service generally.

More specifically, we have established a network of officers, one in every force. We have SPOCs—single points of contact—who are the lead for that force for electoral-related matters. They are knowledgeable in electoral crime and procedure. They usually sit within economic crime teams, but not always. We have created a bespoke training course that is run through the City of London police, which holds particular expertise of its own in this regard. We hold an annual conference for all those single points of contact and a number of other people. There is a very strong, successful partnership from that conference particularly with the Electoral Commission, and with people such as Gillian and other electoral administrators.

We have developed the scope of the portfolio over the last 10 years or so to cover matters of policing the election itself—not just preventing and detecting any fraud, crime or malpractice, but policing the election, so matters of public order and wider security. We have developed guidance in relation to policing elections, which is available on the College of Policing’s website. It is called “Authorised Professional Practice”, and it is about the way police doctrine is expressed and made available to officers up and down the country.

I like to think that, certainly over the last 10 years or so, we have raised the consciousness in the service of electoral malpractice. It is taken extremely seriously and we have some extremely capable and knowledgeable people involved in the work, but it is fair to say that it is something of a niche area. Most officers will not come across it, and in any event the law is slightly difficult to navigate, even for those who have a particular interest and specialism.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Q Good morning to the witnesses. I have two questions to ACC Cann. Do you think the penalties for those committing electoral fraud are sufficient to deter the bad actors?

Assistant Chief Constable Cann: I think the penalties vary, because there is a blend of a civil and a criminal regime at play here. I do not know, because I am not an elected person, a candidate or anything like that, but I imagine that the harsher sanction will be around matters such as being disqualified from holding office or taking part in future electoral matters, rather than a specific fine or a direct sanction. In that regard, there is some significant deterrence there. Generally speaking, when matters go to the courts, it is generally felt that the courts are quite keen to address the seriousness of the matter before them and hand down a suitable penalty.

[Nick Smith]

Q Thank you for that. My second question is this. Mr Mawrey, one of our earlier witnesses, said something like, “Voter ID at polling stations isn’t necessary because there is very little personation.” What is the incidence of personation at polling stations, do you know?

Assistant Chief Constable Cann: I think it is right to say that we have relatively small numbers of those offences coming through to us so, in that sense, it is not a major issue in terms of workload or demand for policing at election time. I imagine that in any case, part of the motivation behind the proposal for voter ID is an element of deterrence. In that regard, if it were to be brought in, we would see some value in that and would broadly welcome that proposal, notwithstanding the fact that, as I say, we do not tend to prosecute or get asked to investigate a significant number of personation allegations.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

Q Councillor Golds, you gave some examples earlier today about behaviour in polling stations. Had there been a voter ID regime in place in Tower Hamlets previously, do you think the behaviour that you saw in polling stations might have been different?

Councillor Golds: I certainly think it would have improved. We had a byelection as recently as 12 October, where in one polling station—the Sundial Centre in Shipton Street—the police were called on two occasions to disperse unruly crowds outside the polling station intimidating voters. That is one polling station in one byelection held this summer. I have to say that Assistant Chief Constable Cann’s description of the police activity is positively Panglossian in its optimism; I just wonder whether any of this has percolated through to the Metropolitan police.

Elections Bill (Second sitting)

Nick Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Thank you. I call Nick Smith.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Q This question is to Ailsa Irvine of the Electoral Commission. Imprints and identification of publisher are important safeguards in our system. I have been a party agent previously, and we are well aware of the importance of fair comment and our libel laws. However, are digital imprints sufficient to improve transparency and prevent interference or misinformation, particularly from overseas?

Ailsa Irvine: Requiring digital campaign materials to include an imprint is something that we have been calling for for a number of years—it has been widely called for for a number of years—and it should go a long way towards providing voters with some information and clarity about who is paying to target them with campaign information. Given the massive boom in the number of people campaigning online, it is something that we know has concerned voters, and voters are telling us that currently they do not feel that they have confidence about where that information is coming from.

This requirement will go some way towards that, although the detailed provisions that are in the Bill at the moment will have some workability challenges around them—for example, by not requiring any unpaid campaign material from those that are unregistered to include an imprint. Although the Bill will bring more people into the category that will require them to register as a campaigner, there is still potential for unregistered campaigners to spend significant amounts of money on creating material and then disseminate it organically, and that would not be required to have an imprint. There is still a bit of a risk and a challenge around the provisions as drafted.

The inclusion of an address in the imprint is an absolutely critical factor, and that will help to demonstrate where a campaigner is based, and whether they are in the UK or otherwise. Again, if there is any activity taking place from outside the UK, although it would be transparent in these instances from the commission’s perspective, and we would have a role in regulating this in relation to non-party campaigners, our remit stops at the UK’s borders. We would not be able to go beyond that.

We have just got experience from the recent elections in Scotland where digital imprints were introduced for the first time. What we saw was that we have a community of campaigners who generally want to comply with the law. We did see good levels of compliance there, with people putting an imprint in place. When we became aware of any instances where that was not the case, we took steps to call up the campaigners to try to bring them in line with compliance. We saw that this was something that can make a real difference to voters.

[The Chair]

Virginia and Peter, would you like to add anything to that? No. I call Fleur Anderson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fleur Anderson]

Q Rob, I would like to go back to the practicalities and your thinking about how you would roll out voter ID. How many additional staff do you think you would need all year round for the applications that come in? We heard earlier that Northern Ireland has ID clinics. How many additional staff do you think you would need for the election period and on the day itself?

To add to that, which groups are you concerned might be disenfranchised by this measure, meaning that you would be working harder to include them? We have had representations from organisations representing older people, people with disabilities, people who are black, Asian or minority ethnic, and women fleeing domestic violence, for example. Are you concerned about those groups, and might other groups be disenfranchised?

Rob Connelly: First, in terms of staffing numbers, I do not know the honest answer to that. We are trying to figure that through. I am already very much leaning towards saying that this cannot sit with my core elections office, because it is too big. What I would worry about is that they become swamped and that they will not be able to deal with their core election job: delivering the election itself.

I was interested when Virginia talked about 70 additional staff at the time; I had not even thought that it would be that high. To be honest, that is going to have to be a corporate response from the whole local authority. It is not something that returning officers can do in isolation. I am absolutely certain of that now. We have tried to figure out what that could look like, but until we know a bit more detail it is quite difficult. One of the questions that I have raised is, as I have 10 parliamentary constituencies, do I just have one core centre, or do I have to have something in each constituency to ensure that I do not have any barriers to people coming in? Why should they have to come into the city centre? I do not know.

In terms of who it potentially disenfranchises, that is a really good question. Back in November, I brought a report to one of my committees in the city council, just to flag that voter ID was potentially going to be introduced. They are better placed than I am to identify the vulnerable groups within their communities, so I am going to push the burden on them a bit to tell me who those communities are—older people, students or vulnerable people. I get on my hobbyhorse about students, because my son is 19 and at university. He has already lost two forms of ID, and that was during lockdown—[Laughter.] My advice to him would be: go to your local elections office and get an ID card. I know that it will not have any date of birth, as I understand it, but you have to be 18 to vote, so over time that could itself drive demand.

The other, related scenario is that my son is registered in Nottingham and in Birmingham. If he had lost his ID—like his passport—would he have to come back to Birmingham to collect something and then return to Nottingham to vote? The way the Bill is currently worded is that you will potentially have to make a declaration that you have no other forms of photographic ID. That is just one of those little areas that I had not given much thought to until my son was asking for something to replace his driver’s licence. We automatically assume that, because they are younger, students have ID, but that is not always the case. We have to be a bit wary of that.

Some of my members have said to me, “I don’t have any current form of photo ID.” These are people in their mid-30s or mid-40s. Again, until we actually get into the nitty-gritty of it and put it into practice, I am not sure whether we will entirely know—until the day or week itself.

[Nick Smith]

Q Louise, my sense is that you are pretty sceptical that much voter personation actually occurs. It was interesting to hear Mr Connelly talk about the difficulties that young voters may have in having voter ID easily to hand. My view is that simple systems boost participation and simple messages are key. What measures do you think you will have to use across the UK to inform our diverse communities that they will need voter ID, and what are your concerns?

Louise Round: I think that it will need to be tackled on a whole range of fronts. There will be a national campaign, and obviously the Electoral Commission will have a massive role to play in relation to that. However, if you take the vaccination programme, which was the most recent analogous experience, our experience is that small and local works. In Merton, as in many other councils, we used local community champions, in some cases from the same ethnic backgrounds as some of the harder-to-reach groups: younger people and older people who can actually talk to people who may be less inclined to, or may not even know that they need to, apply for voter ID in a language and with experience that those people can tune into. It will take a huge concerted effort by the Government, the Cabinet Office, the Electoral Commission and local returning officers.

To pick up what Rob was saying about voter ID cards not being an electoral services responsibility, teams in London range from three to five people, so there is no way they can take on issuing voter ID cards in the middle of an election—as I said, I suspect that, however long the run-up, that is when all the pressure will be piled on. This is a corporate responsibility, and returning officers, generally speaking, are senior managers or chief executives in councils, so they will need to mobilise all their colleagues and make sure that everybody puts all hands to the pump so that we do not disfranchise people.

[Peter Gibson]

Q I have two questions for Rob. In her evidence, the returning officer from Peterborough outlined that they had explored using CCTV in their polling stations. Could you comment on whether you have done the same and on whether that would be of benefit? Could you also outline whether all your polling station clerks are fully trained in the applicability of tendered ballots?

Rob Connelly: CCTV is something we explored in around 2010 or 2011, but we had a number of concerns, including that it might go the other way and affect people’s confidence in the system, in that they might be worried that we were spying on them or would be able to identify how they were voting. We opted not to go down that route. We invested more in additional training for our staff. We even considered looking at CCTV outside polling stations for people who were entering. Again, we did not think, if there were allegations of personation, that that would really help us. We had discussions with West Midlands police about the evidential side of that, and CCTV would not necessarily help you identify who had committed any crime of personation or when. We know it would have been very difficult to prove. As I say, we invest more in our staff who are delivering the ballot papers, and what have you.

In terms of the question about tendered ballot papers, that is something we make sure we reiterate every election. We introduced a form for our polling station staff. If they gave out a tendered ballot paper, they had to give an explanation as to why—what was the reason? We would then spend some time collating that information post-election. That would do two things. One, if there were particular problems with particular polling stations and polling station staff, we could pick that up with them to find out why they were doing those things and fix that for next time. Two, we would then report that back to our members and give out numbers over the whole city, saying that x number of tendered ballot papers had been issued and giving the reasons why. I will be honest with you: there were times when they were probably issued wrongly, but that helped identify the issue so we could eliminate that from the process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It sounds like a brilliant idea. I know that this investment in Falmouth will not cost us a packet; I know that it will be a good investment for the future. Absolutely: we need to make sure that the G7, which is coming to Cornwall for all the right reasons, leaves a lasting legacy of environmentally sustainable investment. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend for precisely that goal.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Would the Chancellor describe the enforcement powers of the lobbying registrar as draconian or a bit of a soft landing?

[Michael Gove]

I have not given the issue much thought lately, but I will look closely at it and write back to the hon. Gentleman.

Integrated Review

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. Our commitment to Israeli security is unwavering, and we continue to work closely with our partners in the Kurdish region of Iraq.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will the Prime Minister level with the country and tell us exactly how he plans to reduce the armed forces by 10,000 in the years ahead?

[The Prime Minister]

I have already explained that this is the biggest investment in our armed forces since the cold war, and there will be no redundancies across the armed forces.