Draft Representation of the People (Postal and Proxy Voting etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 General Committees

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. Having once served on the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, I entirely agree about the incredible amount of work that it does to make sure that the rest of the House and other legislators get this kind of thing right.

A few of us warned, during the Elections Bill, that we were perhaps legislating in haste and would end up repenting at leisure. The Bill was a bit of a wasted opportunity; there was a real need to properly consolidate, update and reform electoral law, and build in a proper timescale for implementing and modernising the regime. Instead, we face a slew of statutory instruments implementing measures and correcting mistakes. That places a huge burden, as the Labour Front Bencher said, on our electoral registration officers, the Electoral Commission and others who are responsible for the safe management of our elections.

It would be useful to hear from the Minister exactly how the Government plan to ensure that returning officers, their teams across the country and the Electoral Commission are properly resourced to implement this change, and all the other changes, with one hand tied behind their back, because no one knows exactly when the election will be. The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 was another piece of retrograde legislation introduced by the Government in an attempt to suppress and confuse voters.

Incidentally, the provisions of this statutory instrument are to run until 1 May 2024. If the election is on 2 May, which is a date that has been floated, Parliament will have to dissolve on 26 March, barely two months from now. That is probably sobering enough for most of us here, but it is incredibly sobering for the people who would have to run the election. That uncertainty is a huge problem. By all means let us fix the mistakes that the Government have made; moreover, let us try not to repeat them.