Elections Bill (Second sitting)
Paul Bristow Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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The Chair
I have Paul Bristow, Chris Clarkson, Nick Smith and Fleur Anderson remaining to ask questions, and we have until 3.15 pm, so can we be kind to each other? Thank you.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
Q Thank you, Ms Rees. I will only ask the one question, to Peter Stanyon. We have heard evidence today from Gillian Beasley, the chief executive of Peterborough City Council, who does a fantastic job of making sure that our elections in Peterborough are done freely and fairly. She outlined some of the things that she has undertaken in Peterborough, such as CCTV, and the professionalism of her team and her staff. We have also seen how well some of the pilots have gone with voter ID. I have every confidence in the AEA and election administrators across the country to get this right. Do you have that confidence, too?
Peter Stanyon: I would echo the words that Gillian said this morning. At the end of the day, Peterborough has some challenges, and they face up to them superbly well. Whatever is expected of administrators, they will once again step up to that mark, but we should not underestimate the challenges that are being levelled not just by voter ID, but by the other elements of the Bill that make it harder and harder—more challenging—for elections to be delivered. I do not think you will find one electoral administrator who does not want to enfranchise people, who does not want them to cast their ballots or who does not want to provide that free and fair election. That is what it is all about; it is just becoming harder and harder to do so. There are resource and training implications, but the really good practice that local authorities such as Peterborough are able to demonstrate is really helpful and is shared across the whole electoral community.
Paul Bristow
Q You said in your evidence that a feature of elections in Birmingham in the past has been people turning up at polling stations with a collection of ballots. That is a feature I know all too well from Peterborough—it happens all the time. There is clear evidence of postal vote harvesting. I know that it goes on. We see people knocking on doors down the street collecting ballot papers and postal votes. Do you feel that the provisions in the Bill will go some way to ending what is a pretty murky practice?
Rob Connolly: They do—I would like to think so. One thing we have to be careful about is that if we introduce voter ID, one of the unknown consequences could be that people say, “I can’t be bothered to go and get my ID card.” Will they then think, “I’ll go and get a postal vote instead.”? We just have to be mindful of that.
Paul Bristow
Q What about party activists collecting ballot papers and handing them in? The Labour party once had its own mock ballot box that it was taking around and asking people to put their votes into. I think we can all agree that that is a practice we ought to end, and we could end it.
Rob Connolly: After 2004, all the political parties undertook not to—
Paul Bristow
That is absolutely true.
Rob Connolly: The Labour party have signed undertakings before every election following that. It gets undertakings from its candidates and activists that they will abide by all the guidance. It shares that with me and gives clear instructions that, certainly in Birmingham, its party activists will not go anywhere near postal votes.
Paul Bristow
Q There is no excuse for it—do you agree?
Rob Connolly: The only reason you would allow it is if a disabled or elderly person wanted some help, but that is a service we can offer.
The Chair
If there are no further questions, I thank the witnesses for their evidence and we will move on to the next panel.
Examination of witnesses
Dr Kate Dommett, Professor Justin Fisher and Darren Grimes, gave evidence.
Elections Bill
Paul Bristow ExcerptsTuesday 7th September 2021
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
My constituency regrettably has seen proven electoral fraud. Local politicians have gone to prison for electoral offences. It continues to have wards with postal vote rates that are way in excess of the national average, and local concerns about personation were sufficiently serious that my council had to install CCTV cameras at polling stations on the day I was elected.
One of the worst arguments—we have heard it regularly today—against voter ID at polling stations is the claim that there is no evidence of a problem. We have a system that largely operates on trust, making it almost impossible to detect acts such as personation, yet critics of this Bill take this failure to detect an undetectable crime as proof that it does not exist. Quoting statistics is pointless. Any of us can have a guess at its prevalence, but, having spoken directly to people who were denied a ballot paper because they were marked as having already voted when they had not, I take my own view.
Opposition Members may say that there is not a problem, but leaving our electoral system wide open to abuse is a problem in itself. That is what their argument misses completely. When most members of the public realise how unchecked and uncheckable our system is, they are shocked. That applies doubly to new arrivals in our country who have often seen electoral malpractice for themselves in other parts of the world, where elections are far from clean. It was notable that during the Government’s photo ID trials, confidence in our electoral system increased most among ethnic minority voters. They are at the most risk of having their votes stolen and are most grateful for safeguards to protect them.
I turn quickly to postal votes. Irregularities are easier to spot, but they can also occur at much greater scale. In 2008, three Peterborough Labour candidates were convicted of electoral fraud offences. They were diverting postal ballots to addresses that they could access, collecting them and fabricating votes. The main protagonist received a 15-month sentence. That was postal vote harvesting with a capital H, but other forms have not been addressed. Still now, every time we have an election, those same activists are seen and photographed leading postal vote teams and pictured telling at polling stations. They have even turned up to recent elections. At my count in 2019, the same people were there.
This is an issue in Peterborough and we cannot bury our heads in the sand. For that reason, this is a long-awaited Bill that will clean up democracy and restore faith in the electoral system in my city.
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Bristow Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Why should anybody believe the Leader of the Opposition when he cannot decide what he thinks from one week to the next? He says he has a tough position on borders. Actually, he was attacking quarantine only recently, and saying that it was a “blunt instrument” that should be lessened. What I think the people of this country want to see is a Government getting on with the vaccine roll-out and getting on with our cautious but irreversible road map to freedom. I am very pleased, and he should say it again, that we have one of the fastest vaccine roll-outs anywhere in the world—certainly the fastest in Europe. It would not have been possible if we had stayed in the European Medicines Agency. We would not have been able to control our borders if, as he voted for 43 times, we had stayed in the EU. We are getting on with the job. We are bringing forward now 23 and 24-year-olds and asking them to come forward for their vaccines. I ask everybody to come forward for their second jab. I trust he has had his. We are delivering on our commitments to the British people—not only a great outcome at the G7 summit last weekend in Carbis Bay, but a new free trade agreement with Australia and building back better across our country. We are getting on with the job, and it would be a wonderful thing, once in his time as Leader of the Opposition, to hear some support for what the Government are doing and some backing up for our approach.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
Covid-19: Road Map
Paul Bristow Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Some 99.5% of the PPE that we have received has been of a high standard, but of course, where people have fallen down on their contracts, we will claw back the money that we have paid.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con) [V]
I want to congratulate our NHS and my right hon. Friend on the great British success story that is the vaccination programme. Because the UK is ahead of others on vaccination, we can open up sooner. My right hon. Friend said that he would focus on data, not dates, but these five-week dates seem arbitrary. If progress against the four tests looks better than expected, might the Government be flexible and review the data and restrictions on a weekly or fortnightly basis, and not on pre-determined dates?
The Prime Minister
These “not before” dates are not arbitrary; they are crucial. They are determined by the time we need to evaluate the impact on the pandemic of the openings-up that we are doing. For instance, we will need four weeks to see whether the opening of schools has caused an uncontrollable surge in the pandemic, and then a week to give advice and so on. So they are not arbitrary; they are dictated by the science, and that is the right way forward. But if we look at the overall road map, it is beyond what many other countries are currently able to achieve, and that, as my hon. Friend rightly says, is thanks to the roll-out of the vaccination programme.
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Bristow Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I fully recognise that the rules have got more complex—were Matt Lucas recreating the “Baked Potato Song” now, he would have to write an opera. They are more complex because we have regional and local lockdowns, as opposed to a blanket lockdown, and I think that is what the nation wants: we want to keep our economy going and to give people as much freedom as we possibly can, while fighting this virus. By and large, although the public are fed up, they are following the rules and they are working together, with collective responsibility, to beat this virus. All Members of this House can help to deliver the messages by putting them on their Twitter feeds and by communicating them. Only by working together are we going to defeat this virus.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Julia Lopez)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. This Chamber has changed in many ways since I went on maternity leave, but I am glad to say that the atmosphere has markedly improved for the better thanks to your warmth and good humour.
The Government are committed to levelling up opportunity in every corner of the United Kingdom, including as we respond to the economic impacts of covid-19. This work has many strands, from the winter economy plan to protect jobs and businesses to the lifetime skills guarantee and the investment we are making in major regional infrastructure. In the Cabinet Office, we are playing our part through our Places for Growth strategy, locating more high-quality civil service jobs beyond the capital so that the Government are better connected to all the communities we are here to serve.
Paul Bristow
I welcome my hon. Friend to her place on the Government Front Bench.
The Government plan to bring decision making “close to people”. Peterborough is a city just 50 minutes from London. It is on the east coast main line and has a bustling hospitality and retail sector and a hard-working and skilful population, and a university is coming. Can my hon. Friend think of a better place for a civil servant to work than Peterborough? Will she consider the city in the latest round of civil service moves?
Julia Lopez
I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate pitch for his city. We completely agree with him that Peterborough, with its fantastic transport links, entrepreneurial people and broader economic offering, would be a great place for a new Government hub. That is why we are locating one at Fletton Quays, where I hope to visit next week to demonstrate our commitment to locating more civil service roles in the regions and nations of the UK.
Covid-19
Paul Bristow Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
What we are pursuing, with the support of the Opposition, is a policy of driving this virus down, while allowing education and our economy to continue. I hope the hon. Gentleman will lend his support to that effort as well.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
I thank the Prime Minister for his statement and for his leadership during this crisis, but will he also commit to a vote in this House prior to any further steps towards a full second national lockdown?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We are continuing to expand testing and tracing, and it is by driving down this virus that we will be able to take the country forward to a much, much brighter future. If people focus on the measures we have outlined today, particularly on obeying the guidance on social distancing, together we will defeat covid.
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Bristow Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
No, and I think that is a pretty lamentable way of looking at it—it is a lamentable question. If the right hon. Gentleman thought there was genuinely something in the ISC report that showed that, for instance, the Brexit referendum had been undermined by Russia, he would now be saying it, but that does not appear. I am afraid that what we have here, as I have told the House several times, is the rage and fury of the remainer elite finding that there is in fact nothing in this report—no smoking gun whatever, after all that froth and fury. Suddenly, all those who want to remain in the EU find that they had no argument to stand on. They should simply move on.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Bristow Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The safety of children will always be our No. 1 priority, and I agree that it is completely unacceptable that children were being taught in tents because buildings funded by UK aid were not being built to the necessary standards. As soon as DFID knew that there was a problem, we took urgent action to ensure that all schools knew that the buildings should not be used, while we worked with the contractor to agree a plan for retrofitting the affected buildings. Covid has caused some delays to that progress, and schools are closed until 15 September, but I understand that the first of the buildings will be handed over shortly, in a state that is considered acceptable. Global education continues to be an absolutely key priority for the Government and, whether in Pakistan or elsewhere, we are working hard to get children back to school.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)
The UK Government are committed to protecting the Rohingya. I thank Bangladesh for its kindness towards vulnerable Rohingya refugees. I recently visited—virtually—Rakhine in Myanmar, where the UK has provided more than £44 million to all communities since 2017, including more than £25 million for the Rohingya. In Bangladesh, we have provided £256 million for the Rohingya response since 2017, including support for food, health and women and girls.
Paul Bristow
In Peterborough, the excellent charity Unite 4 Humanity has been raising money for the Rohingya Crisis Appeal and working with those on the ground in Bangladesh since the start of the crisis. Many others, such as the UK Emergency Medical Team, are there too. Will the Government continue to work with charities and others to help to protect the Bangladeshi and Rohingya communities?
Nigel Adams
UK aid development work delivered through charities and other organisations will remain a priority, given Bangladesh’s vulnerability to climate and man-made disasters. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the excellent work of Peterborough-based Unite 4 Humanity, which I thank for its work, alongside other charities that have stepped up to respond to the Rohingya crisis. Members may have seen on TV adverts this morning that the UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee has launched a coronavirus appeal for vulnerable communities—including the Rohingya—in seven countries. I am pleased to confirm that the UK Government will match funds raised by the UK public, up to £5 million.
EU Exit: End of Transition Period
Paul Bristow Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I will be able to provide a breakdown, port by port and region by region, in due course, but of course we want to work with the Welsh Government to ensure that appropriate infrastructure is in place not just in Holyhead but at other ports. I am grateful for the Plaid Cymru endorsement of UK Government spending in Wales in order to strengthen our Union.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend recall that last year some Opposition Members were clambering aboard the Eurostar to tell the Commission not to agree a deal? We left with a deal, despite what they said and their best efforts to block it. Does he agree that we will end the transition period on good terms at the end of the year, despite what some have been saying throughout this process?
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Bristow Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)
The Government have always stressed the importance of the Union, and the current crisis demonstrates the value in responding collectively. We have world-leading expertise and the economic strength to support jobs and business with generous financial packages. It is the strength of our Union that will enable us to rebuild our economy quickly and fairly.
Iain Stewart
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight these figures. We do not need the barriers and division that separation would bring, nor do we need the reckless talk of effectively closing the border when tourism in Scotland needs all the help it can get.
Paul Bristow
I welcome the Scottish Government’s decision to put off their preparations for a second Scottish referendum on independence while dealing with the coronavirus. Does the Minister agree that, once this pandemic is over, those plans will still be unnecessary and still be unwanted by the people of Scotland?
Iain Stewart
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the last thing Scotland needs is the uncertainty and division that another referendum would bring.