Representation of the People Bill (Second sitting)
Paul Holmes ExcerptsWednesday 18th March 2026
(5 days, 22 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Representation of the People Bill 2024-26 View all Representation of the People Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 18 March 2026 - (18 Mar 2026)
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland and the Electoral Commission Northern Ireland. We have until 2.25 pm for this panel. Will the witnesses introduce themselves for the record?
David Marshall: Thank you very much for the invitation to brief the Committee. I am Dr David Marshall, the chief electoral officer for Northern Ireland. I am responsible in law for all returning officers for all elections and referendums in Northern Ireland, and I am also the registration officer for all of Northern Ireland.
Cahir Hughes: Good afternoon. My name is Cahir Hughes. I am head of the Electoral Commission in Northern Ireland, and I am responsible for ensuring the delivery of the commission’s work in Northern Ireland.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
Q
I have two general questions. You obviously have a unique set of experiences in running elections in Northern Ireland. In some ways, in Northern Ireland you have had, for a long time, some regulatory changes that the Government would say we are only just catching up with, and I think that is a fair assessment. Starting with Mr Hughes, given your experience of running elections with voter identification in Northern Ireland, what is your view of the proposal to add bank cards to the list of accepted identification in the rest of the United Kingdom? Are you concerned that it will create a divergence from the elections that you run and your current guidelines?
Cahir Hughes: It is fair to say that the system of photographic ID at polling stations in Northern Ireland is very well established. It has been running for almost 25 years, and voters are very well aware of the need to bring photographic ID with them to the polling station. Research that we have done shows that the percentage of people who know they need to do so is in the high 90s, and they also know what form of ID—most commonly driving licence and passport. It is an established part of polling day at our elections that people know to bring ID with them.
The bank card proposal has not been introduced in Northern Ireland. There is the issue that there is no date of birth on a bank card, which is what you need for photographic ID in Northern Ireland. With divergence there is always an element of risk. We experienced it in 2024 at the UK parliamentary election, when there were different forms of ID used in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Through our public awareness campaigns and partnership work, we put a lot of focus on ensuring that the right messaging gets to voters in Northern Ireland. As I say, that did not materialise as an issue in 2024. It is something that we will consider as part of our campaigns at future elections from 2029, if the Bill follows the path it is set out to do.
David Marshall: I will say at the start that I have a large enough job as returning officer and registration officer for elections in Northern Ireland before I try to comment on policy matters in Great Britain, but I will give just a wee bit of background. Northern Ireland has had official photo ID for well over 20 years. It came in after widespread public concern about the safety and challenges of running elections back in the 1980s and 1990s. Since then, as Cahir has said, it has by and large worked and been accepted, and there are high levels of public support and confidence in elections here. That is not to say that our system is perfect. We could absolutely include other forms of ID that are currently available in Great Britain. I know the Government are on record as saying the UK veteran card could be included, and there may well be other forms of ID as well. All of this needs to be future-proofed into what digital ID might bring.
In conclusion, only time will tell whether the Government’s plans for bank cards in Great Britain will work. If I was asked in Northern Ireland, I would say, “Expand the list of photo ID rather than go to bank cards at this stage.”
Paul Holmes
Q
I also want to ask about your experiences. There is a contention among many parties in the UK House of Commons that photographic ID means many people turned away from polling stations and being stopped voting, and that it is, as they would say, anti-democratic. Could you give a brief outline of the experience of you guys in Northern Ireland and the speed at which people got used to having to show photo ID? I think you mentioned, Mr Hughes, that over 90% of people are aware that they need to carry photo ID, but can you briefly talk about your experience of the numbers in recent elections who are turned away from voting in Northern Ireland, and do you think it is a large-scale issue?
Cahir Hughes: At the onset of today, it is not a large-scale issue. It is not something that voters or candidates express concerns about to us. Again, I will say that it has been in for 25 years. After the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002 was introduced, photographic ID came into effect in 2003. We ran a lot of public awareness campaigns to highlight the need for photographic ID and the correct forms of ID. We did a lot of post-poll research over the years and the percentage was in those high 80s and 90s. We do not ask that question any more because it is just part and parcel of the electoral process on polling day. We know that voters are very familiar with it.
In the last research that we did, somewhere in the region of 97% or 98% of people were aware that they needed to bring an accepted form of photographic ID. In my experience of observing at polling stations on polling day, when voters do show up without a form of ID, it is just because they genuinely forgot it. There have been no statements of feeling disenfranchised or not being able to participate on polling day, and presiding officers tend to report back to us that voters do come back with a form of ID, be it by returning home or nipping out to the car.
Paul Holmes
Q
David Marshall: Nothing substantial—just that I think the younger community here in Northern Ireland get it and accept it. The older community have been through that transition and that change, as Cahir said, 20 or 25 years ago and they accept it as well. That is not to say there is not the occasional issue in polling stations, but nothing substantial.
Paul Holmes
Q
Cahir Hughes: The list of forms of ID that are available to voters in Northern Ireland is significantly shorter than the list in Great Britain. Again, it is so well established here that people are familiar with it. Nevertheless, we need to move with the times; David touched on the impact of digital ID, and the veteran card is included in the Bill. It is right that it is kept under review, but if it was continually added to over and over again in Northern Ireland, that would risk further divergence from Great Britain and the confusion that we touched on previously.
It is right that it is kept under review, but as I say, there are high levels of public awareness of the need for photographic ID. David will correct me if I am wrong, but I think most voters are very familiar with the fact that they need to bring their driving licence or passport with them, and if they cannot get that, they can get an electoral identity card from the Electoral Office.
Paul Holmes
Mr Marshall, don’t feel you need to, but if you want to add something, you are more than entitled to.
David Marshall: I have nothing further to add.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Samantha Dixon)
Q
David Marshall: I manage a relatively small team in Belfast who run elections here. It is not the equivalent of Great Britain, where there are teams in local councils. There is an Electoral Office that covers all 11 councils here in Northern Ireland. We are tasked with running two sets of elections in May 2027—both the Northern Ireland Assembly and the local council elections—so most of my work and thinking is around that.
The Bill has a commitment to review the canvass law in Northern Ireland, which is very welcome indeed. The canvass law in Northern Ireland has not kept pace with changes in Great Britain, and it really needs to. That is an important step forward. In terms of the nomination process, the requirement for candidates to show a form of ID is a really sensible step forward, given the problems in Great Britain in 2024, and it would be relatively straightforward to implement. We think that is a great idea, as well as the timelines. As I understand it, the Bill brings forward a 12 noon timeline for the last day of nominations, which will help in terms of ballot paper proofing and then getting postal votes out to voters that bit earlier, which will obviously make it easier for them to take part in the election.
There are a whole host of other changes to postal vote deadlines for Great Britain, which in this instance aligns Great Britain to Northern Ireland. I am all for alignment if it changes Great Britain to be the same as Northern Ireland. That is really helpful. Lastly, from an electoral administrator’s perspective, the new penalties for intimidatory behaviour towards staff are critical, and it is really important that those are brought in. It is a really good step forward.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from The Politics Project and the Yorkshire and Humber Policy Engagement and Research Network. We have until 2.50 pm for this panel. Can the witnesses briefly introduce themselves for the record?
Harriet Andrews: Hi, I am Harriet Andrews, and I am the director of The Politics Project, which is a democratic education and engagement organisation that specialises in working with young people on elections and democracy.
Andy Mycock: I am Dr Andy Mycock, and I am a public policy specialist. I sat on the UK Government’s Youth Citizenship Commission in 2008 and 2009, and was a witness at the House of Lords Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement.
Paul Holmes
Q
My question is on votes at 16 and your daily experiences of engaging with young people on it. I have had some experience of this in my constituency on Fridays. Granted, I am probably not the best person to sell the argument for votes at 16, although I still like to think that I can be at one with the kids in the schools—just the fact I said that shows I am not. Without giving my view, I have asked young people at my secondary schools to put their hands up to show whether they are for or against votes at 16, and the overwhelming majority are against. I found that really interesting, and I wonder whether it is in line with the general perception or engagement feedback you have seen?
Aside from votes at 16, could you outline to the Committee what methods, if this proposal goes through, the Government, mainstream political parties and, indeed, all parties should take on board, because we all have a stake in this and need to go further to engage younger people?
Harriet Andrews: There are different polls on what young people think about votes at 16, and the results are mixed—it often depends on how you ask the question. Young people are split on whether they want votes at 16, which suggests that they are not a monolith and that we should not talk about them as a single blob, because they have different views and opinions.
When you dig down into that polling, a lot of young people are saying, “I am not sure I have the skills and confidence to be voting and engaging.” To me, that suggests they are in a really good place to be thinking about voting, because they are taking the responsibility incredibly seriously. When you ask whether they could be supported by schools or adults to learn about this, or on their first vote, they are much keener to engage and take part in democracy from 16. So we do engage with that question a lot and talk to a lot of young people about it, and when we dig down, the reason is normally that they want a bit more support.
I love the question about what parties can do, because I think it is missing a bit from the debate at the moment. A really important thing for parties to think about is the voter information space. If I ask a young person right now, “What does X party think on Y issue?”, the absolute mess they have to wade through to work out what parties think and what their views are on particular issues is really difficult. It is difficult for any voter, and we could take votes at 16 as an opportunity to do a bit better on it.
We will talk a lot about misinformation and disinformation—it is a big topic—but the other side of it is where the good sources of information are that young people can go to for up-to-date factual information about the different political parties. That is one of my pleas: what are you doing to communicate that information to young people more effectively?
Paul Holmes
I am sure many of us around the table will be looking daily at how to do that if the Bill goes through.
Andy Mycock: May I correct the record? I am not an advocate for votes at 16; I am an academic researcher who has been looking at the evidence around the debates for more than 20 years.
We have tracked public opinion, both for young people under the age of 18 and for those over 18, and Hattie is absolutely correct: it is probably about 50/50 among young people. There are those who are very enthusiastic and those who are somewhat nervous. There are lots of reasons why some are more sceptical and nervous. It is often down to family background, the culture of their family and the communities they live in in terms of political engagement.
On the broader issue of public opinion, there has been no evidence of a majority of the general public supporting the measure. That is very different to when the voting age was lowered in 1969 to 18, when you had both political and public consensus over the age of enfranchisement and the age of majority.
In terms of the way political parties might engage better with young people, the research we have done suggests there are a number of issues. First, political parties rarely design policies with or for young people that attract them to vote, so regardless of whether the voting age is 16 or 18, most young people do not vote. Often, the representatives who are selected to represent them are over the age of 50. In all the Parliaments across the United Kingdom, the average age remains over 50, so young people do not see themselves in those people.
On the issues Hattie raised about political communication and the way electoral campaigning is undertaken, those are still clearly problematic; we have a very much 20th-century approach to a 21st-century electorate. People do not feel that politicians speak their language, come to the places where they aggregate or engage with them in ways that fit their lifestyle.
The question you ask is really important, because there is a supply and demand aspect to votes at 16, whether you support or oppose it. UK democracy is in some form of crisis. If you look at the evidence, there is huge distrust of political parties and politicians. More recently we are picking up that there is a systems fatalism: a sense that the electorate, particularly young people who are growing up at this point, feel that whoever is in power—the institutions that shape their lives and govern them—is not going to have a positive effect on them.
Whether you support or oppose votes at 16, this is a once-in-a-generation moment to reflect on not just the composition of the franchise but how you, as parties and politicians, think about the health of our democracy. This is a critical question of democratic resilience. I am doing work in Australia at the moment with the Australian federal Government, and this is a common challenge across western democracies. The UK has an opportunity to take leadership and address these challenges honestly, without getting lost in debates over votes at 16.
Paul Holmes
Q
So my question to you, in connection to that point, is whether you believe there is a missed opportunity in the Bill, in that somebody can vote in elections at 16 but not participate as a candidate, or do the Government have the right balance?
Andy Mycock: Again, I would go back to 1969. There has been very little policy learning about what happened there. It is interesting that the age of enfranchisement and the age of majority were brought together, but the age of candidature was not; in fact, it was not until 2006 that the Electoral Commission finally lowered it. At this point, there is no need to say that that is a barrier to or a support for lowering the voting age; it is an issue to think about.
I do feel there is a need for this House to review the age of majority; that is not to change it, but the conditions of the 20th and 21st centuries are very different. In the law, adulthood is now shaped at the age of 18, which is the legal age of citizenship, and yet you can get a national insurance number or a passport or undertake elective surgery—you can do a huge number of things—under the age of 18. At the same time, those traditional indicators of adulthood, such as owning a house, getting married, having children and having a full-time job, are being realised much later in life.
Our research indicates strongly that young people do not see 18 as a particularly significant once-in-a-lifetime moment when they become adults. Adulthood is much more complex, as is maturity and the sense of how young people fit into society. Our research indicates strongly that young people, if they are enfranchised universally across the UK at the age of 16, want to be treated as young people in the electorate and not to be seen as adults.
Paul Holmes
Q
Harriet Andrews: The main opportunity we see from votes at 16 is that it provides an opportunity to effectively support people to vote while they are still in education, or in work or training; 18 is actually a terrible time of your life to suddenly take on this new opportunity.
It allows us to deal with things like inequalities caused by the way your parents vote and engage determining how you vote and engage. The opportunity for schools to play much more of a role, and for there to be a more systematic approach to supporting young people, is the real opportunity with votes at 16.
Our main interest is also about what we are putting around votes at 16: where is the education, engagement and support for young people so that they can engage in democracy really effectively?
Samantha Dixon
Q
Harriet Andrews: We have a really great split screen on this because we work in England and in Wales, in particular. At the moment, we are preparing loads of young people for the Senedd election. We are running 16 youth hustings for young people at the moment in Wales, so we have a lot of on-the-ground experience of this. I would say that supporting young people at 16 and supporting young people at 18 are not particularly different; it is the same process of preparing them to engage and vote.
From our experience in Wales, I can say that young people are taking it really seriously. They are thinking about the responsibility and are really excited to vote. The work that we are doing with young people is a positive experience, and they are engaging really well. If there are any worries about harm being done to young people aged 16, our on-the-ground experience suggests that that is absolutely not the case.
The one thing that we see in Wales is that votes at 16 needs to come alongside support—particularly democratic education and engagement in schools—so that young people know how to vote. Just changing the voting age in itself will not lead to a mass change in the way young people engage with politics and democracy. The lack of support in Wales has meant that there is not loads and loads of engagement at 16, so the surrounding support is really important, regardless of the voting age.
Andy Mycock: I have been involved in the evaluations of both the Scottish and the Welsh lowering of the voting age, and I have advised both Governments on that work. The first thing is that the lessons from 1969 were not learned in either of those cases. Simply lowering the voting age on its own does not have a mercurial effect in encouraging young people to engage and vote. The big problem is that there is a need to have a significant framework of support for young people as they grow up, before they vote, whatever the voting age is.
At present, in Scotland, Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom, there is a disconnection between the different stages of school—between primary, secondary, and further and higher education. The 50% of young people who do not go to university are dropped completely in terms of their support. It is a huge issue, and I urge you to look at it. What happens in schools and outside schools is very poorly connected, and what happens online is almost unregulated. There is a huge opportunity to think about media, information and political literacy at this point.
I urge you to think about what the House of Lords called a civic journey—the ability to connect all those different interventions and policies from Governments at different levels to a set of clear policy ambitions. At the moment, votes at 16 has very little in terms of a clear agenda for success, beyond the idea that young people might vote a little more over their lifetime. In Scotland and Wales, that has not happened.
In the independence referendum of 2014, 75% of 16 and 17-year-olds voted. It was seen as a huge success, until you look at the average turnout, which was 85%. Young people aged 16 and 17 in Scotland, although they vote more than their 18 to 24-year-old peers, continue to vote at considerably lower rates than the average turnout. That is because neither Government thought at the time they lowered the voting age about significant, consistent support for every young person as they grow up. They need to be heard, listened to and engaged with, not just in their lessons but in their communities. They need to meet you and local and other elected representatives regularly so that they feel they are part of the democracy, regardless of whether they are enfranchised or not.
The other thing that did not happen in 1969 was any evidence-based approach to finding out what the effect of lowering the voting age was. Lowering the voting age to 18 in 1969 was a policy failure. In every election after that until the late 1990s, turnout among 18 to 24-year-olds fell. This is likely to be a similar situation. Votes at 16 needs to learn to adopt an evidence-informed approach. We need a longitudinal study of the effects of what is happening. It is remarkable that this country does not have a centre for research around democracy. We have one on electoral studies, but we do not aggregate what is happening out there in the democracy.
As I said at the start, we are in a moment of huge precarity in terms of the future strength of British democratic resilience. I urge this Committee to think about how Government, Parliament, academia, and wonderful organisations such as the one Hattie represents and the Electoral Commission can come together and think about how we start to build an evidence base that starts to learn from the policy interventions that we invest in. We must start to think about the future health of British democracy.
The Chair
We have until 3.15 pm for this panel. Could both professors briefly introduce themselves for the record?
Professor James: My name is Toby James. I am a professor of politics and public policy at the University of East Anglia. I am also the co-director of the Electoral Integrity Project.
Professor Bernal: Hello, I am Professor Paul Bernal. I am professor of information technology law at the UEA law school. I am a specialist in data and in privacy, and I have been working with Toby on electoral data since around 2020.
Paul Holmes
Q
You suggested that an amendment could be introduced to establish statutory requirements for electoral registration officers to publish data on parliamentary and local elections in England and Northern Ireland. I thought it was general practice and already a statutory requirement for returning officers to publish things such as the names of candidates, polling stations and the results of elections. Could you explain where you have come from on that, and what the difference is with the current system?
Professor James: This maybe reflects the different ages in which electoral laws were first designed, many of which were designed in the Victorian age. We have a very decentralised system, whereby electoral registration officers and returning officers publish data on candidates, results and so on, but not necessarily in an electronic format—to qualify that—and not in a uniform fashion. Many electoral authorities around the world, for example, would receive results and names of candidates at a local level, and therefore it would be really easy to publish all that in one central data source. That is not the case for UK parliamentary elections or for local elections. Not so much myself but other colleagues—colleagues at the University of Exeter, for example—collect this data and publish it instead. I think that it should be a central function of the state to provide electors with data on who the candidates are and what the results are.
Paul Holmes
Q
This may be slightly out of the scope of both of your expertise, but there is an amendment tabled to the Bill about a digital election leaflet repository for digital communications. It would introduce a duty for, after 72 hours, paid-for digital election campaigning materials to be stored in a central repository. It is not our amendment, but I think the argument is that people would then be able to see—and hold to account—the promises made by various parties in the United Kingdom. Do you have a view on whether that would be a good thing? Is that something that you support?
Professor James: My areas of expertise are probably elsewhere in the Bill, but I would generally be in favour of greater transparency. Collecting in a central location information about the promises that are being made to the electorate by parties only enhances transparency.
Professor Bernal: There is another side to it, which is whether such a requirement would mean that the electoral communications had to be in some kind of standardised form. For this sort of depository to be useful, it would have to be sortable, searchable and so on, and that would require some kind of standardised form. Would that be a good thing? I think it probably would, because we want as coherent a set of information as possible. Would parties like it, given that it would constrict which bits of information they gave and did not give? I am rather cynical about that possibility.
Paul Holmes
Q
Professor James: The Bill covers many of the foundations that you would need to have to enable electoral registration to be increasingly automated. As many other witnesses have said, the devil is in the detail, and the detail is due to come in secondary legislation. That is what is really important: which data sources will be used and which are the best data sources to be used?
In many ways, it makes sense to refer to secondary legislation for that, because obviously the best data sources for improving the quality and accuracy of the electoral register will change as data changes over time, so some flexibility for Ministers is relevant and important. At the same time, that is a lot of detail in secondary legislation. Obviously we are here and you are scrutinising the Bill. It will be important that the secondary legislation is scrutinised by parliamentarians, and that there is an opportunity for civil society groups, and those groups representing individuals who are less likely to be on the electoral register, to be included in those discussions.
The decisions that are being made at the moment—important decisions—by Government Departments, electoral officials and the Electoral Commission have a lot of detail in them. Making those discussions as inclusive, open and transparent as possible is something that Parliament might want to consider promoting.
Paul Holmes
Q
Professor Bernal: I have one thing to add, and it is a very simple one: I would like the open register to be abolished—straightforwardly abolished. As a privacy expert, it seems to me that it creates more risks. In the age that we are in at the moment, we need to reduce the risks as much as possible.
Samantha Dixon
Q
Professor James: You can think of two basic, broad clusters of countries that have automatic voter registration in one form or the other. In one set of countries, you have a central single record for every single citizen: what might be called a civil population register. Those are countries such as Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands or Germany. That is where automatic voter registration is simpler to implement because, in practice, what happens is that, in short, there is a copy and paste of that register ahead of election day.
In other countries, including in Canada and Australia, there is not a single record for every single individual. What those countries have done recently—I say “recently”; it has been over the course of the last 20 years—is move towards automatic voter registration by automatically enrolling groups of people using specific pieces of data at points when they know the data is accurate and reliable. In the UK context, Canada and Australia are probably the most relevant examples.
The Chair
I am sure we will be exploring the “Lord knows what” as we go along.
Richard Mawrey: My name is Richard Mawrey. I am a King’s counsel and a practising barrister, and have acted as election judge—or election commissioner, technically—in most of the serious electoral fraud cases of the last 20-plus years, so I have considerable judicial experience of electoral fraud and other malpractice in all its guises.
Paul Holmes
Q
Given that in 2015 a Tower Hamlets election court judgment found that personation was one of the interlinked types of “corrupt and illegal practices” that took place, where people’s votes were literally stolen, are the proposals within the legislation good or bad for voter security?
Councillor Golds: I think the list produced by the Electoral Commission was somewhat restrictive; it should have been expanded. We had the situation where service personnel, nurses and so on were arriving with their photocards, but could not be permitted to vote. I am not sure that a bank card is a good idea, because anybody can hand a bank card to somebody else. Voter ID is popular with the public and causes very few problems. People believe it adds security to the electoral process.
Paul Holmes
Q
Richard Mawrey: Yes. As a means of identification at polling stations, I am easy either way on bank cards. Clearly, anyone can obtain a bank card and create an account in a particular name, so fraud would be very easy. The reason why I am relaxed about it at polling stations is that personation at polling stations is a very rare bird indeed, these days.
Most personation occurs with postal voting simply because personation at polling stations is difficult and extremely labour intensive. You have to find bodies prepared to go there and do the personating, and they are personally running the risk that somebody says, “You’re not Mr Jones”—and along comes a large constable and there is big trouble; normally, with personation, you are looking at a spell inside. It is an extremely risky business and you can do it only in penny packets: half a dozen here and half a dozen there.
If you want to influence an election, even a local election, personation at a polling station is a waste of time and effort, so on that issue I am fine. However, I would counsel very strongly against using bank cards as a means of identification for registering voters or for postal votes, because the possibilities for fraud are obvious.
Paul Holmes
Q
Harry Busz: I would add that, as an organisation, we have collected data on the number of turn-aways at the polling-station level, since the policy of photographic identification came in a few years ago. We tend to find significantly higher numbers of people being turned away at the polling-station level than we see in some of the data that has been collected by the Electoral Commission, primarily because of the different stages at which people can be turned away in the process, whether that is signage, party political tellers who are overextending their role or meeters and greeters.
It is an issue because there are particular groups who struggle to either have the ID or to bring the ID with them on the day. From our perspective, looking at different ways to bring in other forms of photo identification, whether that is the digitisation of the voter authority certificate or other forms of digital ID, is welcome. I agree to a large extent with the councillor about reducing the existing level of security when bringing in non-photographic identification.
Paul Holmes
Q
There is nothing in the Bill about family voting, but do you believe it should be amended in that regard? Do you or Democracy Volunteers perceive that family voting is a serious enough issue, and such a prevalent issue, that we need legislation to strengthen the security of that element, Harry?
Harry Busz: Let me be clear about the data that we have collected. With family voting, we collect instances of somebody’s right to a secret ballot being denied to them because of oversight, direction or collusion inside polling booths. As an organisation, we have collected and published data on that for 10 years now. At the latest general election, we saw it in 116 of the 204 constituencies that we observed in. It is a widespread problem all across the country.
Family voting can take different forms. When ballot secrecy is broken, we do not know the relationships between the people who are involved, or whether there is coercive control, so we very much believe that it should not be allowed in any democracy. Everybody’s vote should be theirs and theirs alone. The data that we collected led to the Ballot Secrecy Act 2023, which is an important piece of legislation that specifies that trying to influence somebody in the polling booth is an offence. We think that there are ways in which that could go even further.
To clarify, oversight should not be allowed. A lot of the legislation is in place. One of the challenges is election administrators on the ground, with the infrastructure they have, being able to prevent that from taking place.
Paul Holmes
Q
Harry Busz: Yes. For example, the types of polling booths we use here in the UK are a sort of cross-section. The selling points of those polling booths are that they are easy to store and quick to put up, but there is no reference to ballot security, whereas lots of other countries have individual polling booths that can aid staff in preventing family voting before it has started. By the time it has started, it tends to be too late.
Paul Holmes
Q
Councillor Golds: My experience goes well beyond Tower Hamlets. I have been an election agent for parliamentary elections in five different London boroughs and in Hertfordshire, and I have been an election agent in seven different London boroughs for local elections. I have campaigned. I have seen this far too often, in far too many places. It crosses communities. Let us be absolutely clear that we are not talking of any individual community here. It is a situation we could possibly call patriarchal, in which groups of men believe they can tell women what to do. In many places, that will include aggressive, angry white men. Let us put that on the record. I have seen it, and I have tried to stop it.
When we first got involved in this campaign, Lord Hayward, who I believe is here today, steered the Ballot Secrecy Bill through the House of Lords. That strengthened the protections. When we were campaigning against family voting, some bizarre instructions were going around, including one sent by a former official of the Electoral Commission to the police. I mention this because I shall relate it to Gorton and Denton. The police said:
“We have checked with the Electoral Commission and have been informed that just because the voter process was not followed, in terms of secrecy…it might not necessarily relate…to an offence.”
Here it comes:
“The onus is on the individual who casts their vote to claim that secrecy has been breached or that they have been unduly influenced.”
We got the Bill through, and the Act sits there. It is illegal to interfere with somebody. I seriously wonder whether that email is still sitting in an inbox somewhere in a police station or council office.
The Chair
Q
Councillor Golds: I am sorry Chair, but it concerns family voting, doesn’t it? This is the secrecy of the ballot I am talking about, where somebody is interfering with it. The onus is on the individual who casts their vote. This is what it is. That is why the Ballot Secrecy Act, which Lord Hayward and former MP Paul Bristow brought through the House of Commons, was passed with support across the Floor; every party supported it. It went through, as I think colleagues would say, on the nod. It absolutely clarified the law that, if you vote, you vote in secrecy. My concern has always been that it is not being enforced. The law is the law, but where is the spirit?
Paul Holmes
I agree.
Richard Mawrey: The problem—which I have found in all the cases I have tried, and not simply those to do with family voting, but almost any electoral offence—is that there is no point in having rules or statutes, however good and however well drafted, if nobody is prepared to enforce them.
That was particularly the case in Tower Hamlets, where there were multiple breaches of almost every prohibition in the Representation of the People Act 1983. I have never seen that many different offences, most of which were proved to the hilt. What happened there was that they were drawn to the attention of the Electoral Commission, which said, “No problem there; nothing to look at”, and to the police, who said, “Oh, we’re not interfering”, knowing the type of allegations that would be made against them if they did interfere.
Exactly the same happened about 20 years before in Birmingham. The evidence of widespread postal fraud was put in the hands of West Midlands police, and they got a nice little folder, wrote on the outside “Operation Gripe”, put it in a bottom drawer and forgot about it. That was their own evidence in the matter; they were simply unwilling to act.
It is not a question of resources. In many cases, the police were presented with what might be termed an oven-ready case, and they said, “Oh, no, we’re not touching this with a bargepole.” I am afraid that is the problem. Another problem, I am sorry to say, is that the Electoral Commission’s view is that electoral fraud is not happening. Indeed, that has been its view since I delivered Birmingham, hence my comment at the time about banana republics. Therefore, there is no impetus for the people who should be enforcing it actually to enforce the law.
I would say that, on family voting, or indeed any of the matters that are proposed, the law at the moment is fine but, if you do not enforce it, you might just as well put the thing in a bottom drawer marked “Operation Gripe”.
Paul Holmes
Q
Do you think that is a good thing for democracy? Do you think it is needed, given some of the campaigning tactics we have seen? Or do you not think it would not make a difference in general to some of the problems we have seen in by-elections—but also in local and national elections—in the country?
Harry Busz: As an organisation, we do not necessarily have a viewpoint on the issue you are referring to. As well as ballot secrecy and a lot of the other issues that we look at in polling stations, we are very aware of the accessibility of elections and understanding the campaigns going on being important to increasing turnout and getting more people involved in democracy. We do not have a specific policy towards the new clause.
Councillor Golds: I have been an agent for many years. Many years ago, in Brent, I remember issuing leaflets in Gujarati. I think that this is something that needs balance. We need to understand—I sent this back to the regulators—that it is one thing to have a leaflet on both sides having, “Do come and vote for party X, my party. I am a great candidate and my party is wonderful”, if what is printed in another language that might be familiar to people also says, “Please vote for me. I am a great candidate. My party is wonderful.” However, if in English the leaflet says, “Please vote for me. I am a great candidate. My party is wonderful”, but we turn it over and the other language says, “The other people are”—lord knows what—or this, that and everything else, then that is when we get to the problem.
In my view, this has to go back to the regulators. I am sorry to say that. In a country such as ours, with a multiplicity of languages, I want people to get involved. In my current borough, the big thing is Sylheti. If people understand Sylheti and we can put stuff out in Sylheti, all well and good, as long as when something is put in Sylheti, it says the same as for an English-speaking voter. If an English-speaking voter says, “I do not understand this”, and someone can turn around to say, “It is exactly the same”, all well and good, but if it is different, we have trouble.
Richard Mawrey: It would be perfectly acceptable if there were some sort of insistence, as Peter Golds says, for the texts to be comparable, but that is unfortunately not the case—or certainly was not the case in Tower Hamlets, as I discovered. Quite anodyne stuff in English—“Vote for me. I am a good chap”—came out much longer in Sylheti, couched in really quite extreme religious terms. The two sides of the document did not match.
It would clearly be desirable for the two sides of the document to match, so that, in a sense, you could monitor it, particularly if the one that was in a non-English language contained material that ought not to be there in the first place. That can occur, not simply with Asian languages, but with all other languages. You could say something that, you hope, no one outside your language group will understand. It is essential, I think, to monitor that so there is some equality between the obverse and reverse of the same coin.
Paul Holmes
I appreciate that. We will go away to look at how that new clause can be tailored to your feedback, all three of you. The new clause came out of some of the campaigning in the Gorton by-election, so we will go away and look at it again.
The Chair
Mr Browder, can you introduce yourself? I do not know if you heard me say that there is likely to be a vote during the course of your evidence. I will suspend the Committee for 15 minutes. The MPs present will vote, but we will come back to hear the remainder of your evidence.
Alexander Browder: Good afternoon, I am Alexander Browder. I am the founder of the global cryptocurrency laundering database—the first and largest open-source database on cryptocurrency laundering. I am the author of the report, “Confronting the Illicit Finance Hydra in the Crypto Markets: Protecting Retail Investors and Disrupting Hostile Government Exploitation”. I will be pleased to answer any questions that you have regarding how the UK could see cryptocurrency interfering in our elections. I have seen a number of bad actors using cryptocurrency to influence politics elsewhere, so I am happy to provide some examples.
Paul Holmes
Q
Alexander Browder: You cannot have crypto donations without a proper regulatory framework, and there is not going to be a whole regulatory framework for all of cryptocurrency until at least late 2027. You cannot have the wild west of cryptocurrency without proper guardrails. You need to be able to establish that those guardrails are effective in stopping foreign and criminal interference in our elections. If cryptocurrency is deemed to be permissible, we need, firstly, to be able to disclose the wallet addresses of the political donations.
There should not be any limit to the reporting requirements for cryptocurrency donations; at present, it is above £500. All cryptocurrency should be stored in institutions that are registered with the UK Financial Conduct Authority. Furthermore, the Electoral Commission needs more power to be able to investigate cryptocurrency donations. At present, they cannot access cryptocurrency wallets or investigate cryptocurrency exchanges, which leaves a whole gap open to foreign interference.
Paul Holmes
Q
Alexander Browder: Bad actors are continually evolving, and within cryptocurrency there are a number of different tactics that they use to conceal their funds. One that is particularly relevant to this issue is something called smurfing. That is where donations are split across cryptocurrency wallets to stay under the £500 reporting threshold.
There is also something called a mixer, which allows a user to send funds in and receive a whole different address. That means it is impossible to trace for an investigator who wants to try and see if a criminal has donated. At present, the Electoral Commission does not have any power to investigate. Political parties are not proper investigative bodies and do not have the skills to investigate this complex situation. More power needs to be established for this.
The Chair
Excellent. We also have three witnesses in the room. There is always a bit of choreography when we are rotating between online and in-situ witnesses. Could the witnesses in the Committee Room introduce themselves too, please?
Colin Blackwell: I am Colin Blackwell, and I am deputy chairman of Conservatives Abroad.
Imogen Tyreman: I am Imogen Tyreman, and I am the chair of the Labour International constituency Labour party.
Richard Williams: My name is Richard Williams, and I am Labour International’s representative on Labour’s national policy forum.
Paul Holmes
Q
Colin Blackwell: Thank you, Paul. The simple answer is no, it does not. A survey about voter participation among overseas electors in the OECD has shown that the UK is a significant statistical outlier, with the lowest effective participation rate. Only around 1.3% of the more than 5 million people in that potential electorate are thought to have successfully cast a ballot at the last UK election. This Bill, of course, does not overtly address overseas electors, but one of its objectives is to increase voter participation.
In line with the Electoral Commission’s recommendations, Conservatives Abroad believes that technological advances now make it possible for a secure and verifiable online facility to be introduced to allow overseas electors to download and self-print their ballot paper and return envelope for one-way return posting. New Zealand and Singapore are two English-speaking Westminster democracies that have implemented downloadable ballot papers, and they use a biometric identification app to verify overseas electors downloading ballot papers against the voter registration ID credentials that were provided at the time of voter registration.
Unlike at the time of the Elections Act 2022, when Conservatives Abroad first recommended this approach, the UK now has this technology. In the last few weeks, we have seen the launch of the Government Digital Service’s One Login app for gov.uk services, and it is now available. That was previously not a technological possibility, but now it absolutely is. New Zealand and Singapore are the gold standards for downloadable ballots for their diaspora.
Paul Holmes
Q
Imogen Tyreman: In the proposal itself, there are some elements that will help overseas voters to get on the register and exercise their vote and that go further than the current situation, such as the extension of the postal vote and requiring earlier registration. There are also things such as automatic registration, looking at passports and some of the pilot projects. However, I think that more can still be done, particularly on postal votes. That is often what people use, because there is not really enough information about proxy voting, and electoral registration officers do not know how it can operate. That feels like a barrier.
To take the example of postal voting, there is a return rate of 70% or so if ballots are sent out early. But of the postal ballots that were sent out later during the last election—around 27 June—only 2% were returned. Looking at specific countries, there was only a 6% return rate for Australia. There was a higher return rate for France, at 75%. In Spain, which is also a European country, only 32% of ballots were returned. Royal Mail itself has said that it takes six to seven days for standard letters to reach the rest of the world, so if the postal vote deadline is 14 days, I do not know how we are expecting ballots to reach voters and get returned in time. For us, having downloadable ballots is one option, as well as looking at the potential for online voting, and at the use of embassies and consulates as voting hubs or places where we can return ballots. They could potentially go back by diplomatic mail, which is much quicker.
Paul Holmes
Q
Imogen Tyreman: Yes.
Paul Holmes
I was just checking—I was not trying to catch you out.
Richard Williams: Perhaps I can just add to that last point while it is top of mind. Something that came up in discussions among members of Labour International was what could be viable alternatives to the current system. Of course, we are not the first country to talk about electronic voting.
Other European nations have successfully introduced electronic voting, with Estonia probably being the best example. In its last election, over 51% of votes were cast via an electronic system. A number of measures are built into that system to avoid things like voting coercion, whereby multiple votes can be cast and only the very last one is actually counted, and physical voting always takes precedence when both electronic votes and physical votes are received.
Having said that, to come back to the original point on whether Britons abroad are adequately addressed as a voter group, I think the numbers that Colin rightly spoke about are telling. Of the 5 million Britons living abroad, only just under 200,000 are on the electoral register, which speaks for itself.
There are really three main reasons for that. One, beyond looking at processes, is simply awareness: many Britons are not aware that they have the right to vote if they are not living in the country. There is no proactive communication on the side of the Government. It is very much left to the individual themselves to find out what their rights are and then to go through the process of contacting the local authority where they used to live in the UK—I did it in Ashford, Mr Joseph’s constituency. It is relatively easy, but there is then the additional process of having to register for a postal vote, which happens afterwards. Those things are all addressed in the Bill, and I think there are some improvements there, but the awareness is the first hurdle.
Then there are the processes themselves. And the third point, in some cases, is probably apathy: if you do not have an MP representing your interests as somebody living abroad, you do not care about the potholes in the local high street as much.
Paul Holmes
Q
Jenny Shorten: We don’t disagree with any of what has been said, but I will pick up on a couple of points. On the last point you made, about contact with MPs, I conducted a survey across all parties to look into exactly that. The answer to the question, “Do overseas voters think they are represented?” is no, because things like the automated replies say, “I can only help you if you live in the constituency.” It is no wonder they feel invisible, and that is a word that has regularly cropped up in our surveys with people who get in touch with us; they say, “I feel like I’m not there and not being taken notice of.”
The other thing I wanted to direct our thinking towards is whether the processes and systems set us up to fail or to succeed. As a former election agent, I would say that the election timetable is not fit for purpose; it does not make sense. It went wrong for UK electors last time round, but particularly for those overseas. As I think Imogen remarked, you cannot get it done. With the current options, you have to wait until 19 days before polling day to know who the candidates are, so that is the earliest you can prepare ballot papers. People can still register up to 11 working days before. It is not going to work, however hard and however assiduously the people who administer it actually try.
On behalf of all of us, I think, I would like to say thank you to the Electoral Commission for finally collating the figures on how many postal votes got back in time; it is the first time we have seen them. I am sure the Committee is shocked by the fact that it is less than half. We need to look at the process, but it is also a significant matter of culture.
Paul Holmes
Q
Tom McAdam: I would just like to touch on the opportunity here. When we look at France, at the last legislative elections, it had a 37% turnout of overseas citizens. We can compare that with the turnout of British citizens overseas at the last general election, which was 5%. There is a huge opportunity. It is not one measure that will help that, but a package of measures.
The apathy point is really important. Without a dedicated overseas Member of Parliament talking about the interests of overseas citizens, it is easy to feel that we do not have representation in Parliament. Given the problems with actual voting, people do not feel incentivised to attempt to vote. I do not think that any one measure will really move the needle but, if we take everything as a whole, we might be able to move towards the numbers seen in France.
Paul Holmes
If the Minister decides to make me the MP for overseas voters, I am more than happy to do surgeries across the world.
Samantha Dixon
Q
As an aside to Paul’s point, I do receive correspondence from constituents who live overseas, usually in respect of their pension arrangements. However, to tackle the point about apathy or disengagement, the Bill includes powers to pilot automatic voter registration. Do you think that that would be a valuable tool for overseas voters?
Colin Blackwell: As others have touched on, awareness is everything. Conservatives Abroad believes that what is vital above all else is raising awareness of the right to vote and encouraging overseas citizens to register, which is now done online.
Historically, the civil service has always said, “Oh, we can’t contact Brits overseas because we don’t keep a register. We don’t know where they live. We don’t know who they are.” That raises the question of how this part of the electorate would be suitable for automatic registration.
Today’s Government services are delivered digitally and electronically in a way that was not done before. Many Departments now interact digitally with millions of British citizens living overseas. The most obvious one is the Passport Office: half a million passports from overseas are renewed every year—over 10 years, that is 5 million. The international pension centre at the Department for Work and Pensions deals with more than a million overseas pensions. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office keeps registers of Brits in individual countries. Lastly, the first place people go when they move overseas is His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to change their address. Millions of British people living overseas still pay British taxes in one form or another or make voluntary NI contributions.
What I am saying is that, if all these digital interactions between Government and overseas Brits were brought together, and a link to the online voter registration page were automatically provided in those interactions, you would overnight reach potentially millions of this invisible electorate with the exact place they need to go to register to vote. That is the approach that Conservatives Abroad would suggest you look at.
Imogen Tyreman: Automatic voter registration pilots are a great thing to look into, especially for overseas voters. I agree that we should look at how registering for a passport could link to registering to vote. Yes, it might miss some Brits, but unfortunately we do not keep a record of emigration, so it is the best opportunity we have. However, there needs to be a package of other measures or that will not necessarily affect turnout.
We see lower turnout in countries that have passive registration, so there must be accompanying measures, even if it is through the Electoral Commission, to help us to contact voters abroad to inform them. That could be something like a free post or an opt-in registration. Such options need to be explored, and the timeline for renewal also needs to be considered to make sure that people stay on the register.
Richard Williams: I agree with all the points that have just been made. There is one group of people who have emigrated who might fall through the cracks if you look just at the HMRC records of people who have emigrated: those born to British parents overseas. These people may have a right to citizenship but have never lived in the country. They have specific difficulties even getting on to the electoral register. In many cases, they need to provide evidence of their parents’ birth certificate and their own birth certificate, and then there is a question of where their vote should be assigned. This topic came up in discussions with other Labour International members.
Beyond that, if we speak about the choice architecture, we certainly echo the sentiment that we are in favour of trialling automatic and automated voter registration. One topic that came up in discussion with our members, which is perhaps a way to look at doing this, was the idea of automatic reminders upon passport renewal, which is an interaction that many Brits abroad will have. If you structured that in such a way that people would then have the choice—ticking a box to say, “Yes, I want to be on the register,” or “No, I do not want to be on the register”—it would simplify and consolidate the process for many people.
There is then the question of whether there is an opt-in or opt-out approach. In the notes accompanying the Bill from the House of Commons Library, there was a reference to the Sheffield University case study in which 75% of students were enrolled on the electoral register through a process whereby they were prompted upon their annual enrolment for university. That figure compares with 13% for other universities. If that system were explored in a pilot for voters abroad, we might expect to see similar results just by structuring the choice in such a way that people have this prompt, and we could then ask whether it should be an opt-in or an opt-out choice.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Demos and Full Fact. We have until 5.20 pm for this panel in our revised timescale. Will our witnesses please briefly introduce themselves for the record?
Azzurra Moores: Hi, my name is Azzurra Moores. I am the associate director of information ecosystems at Demos, the UK’s cross-party think tank.
Chris Morris: Hello, I am Chris Morris, the chief executive of Full Fact. We are a charity and we do fact-checking. We also have a technology team and a policy team to try to tackle issues of misinformation.
Paul Holmes
Q
Clearly, in the election strategy announced before Christmas, the Government said that our
“democracy is being threatened by misinformation”.
Both your organisations have come up with fairly similar recommendations, including, in the Demos report on electoral online harms, the recommendation for a political digital repository. I think that is quite a good idea. Can you outline to the Committee, on behalf of your organisations, where you think that the Bill is deficient in tackling such threats, particularly those from digital communications?
Azzurra Moores: I should clarify that our recommendations are so similar because Demos, Full Fact and other civil society partners have been working together.
Paul Holmes
I would never have guessed.
Azzurra Moores: We are working together partly because there is a real feeling among civil society that the Bill is much too narrow in scope and does not go far enough to tackle some of the major threats to elections that we are seeing. Part of the reason we came together is the quote that you referenced, Paul: the Prime Minister himself said that misinformation is a huge problem, and actually we are seeing such threats to elections.
We have come together to think about some of the recommendations. We have come up with a number of recommendations on a range of issues, including online harassment of candidates, given that the Bill focuses a lot on in-person harassment of candidates. We have also looked at deepfakes, and at how digital advertising needs to be modernised. We really feel that the Bill is, at the moment, a bit of a missed opportunity to tackle something that is—this is the consensus among civil society—a huge threat to democracy.
If we do not tackle some of these issues now, we do not know when we are going to tackle them to prepare ourselves for the next election. We were quite lucky in the last election that we did not see major threats to democracy or huge amounts of interference. But we have seen examples globally, including across Europe and in Canada, and we have seen examples outside election periods. We feel that that is why the Bill needs to be amended to provide for some of the bigger threats that elections face.
Chris Morris: To back that up, part of our fear is that a lot of what is in the Bill has been locked in for so long that these really important aspects of misinformation and disinformation are missing. As you suggested, we are in a situation where technology is moving at warp speed.
We recognise that legislating at a fixed point when the technology is moving so quickly is not easy, yet the Bill falls significantly short of its original aims, which included restoring trust and strengthening the integrity of our democracy. If you are going to hold an election, the information environment in which it is held is absolutely central to the public perception—I think I am going to use the word “transparency” a lot during this session—that the system is working in their favour and can be trusted.
People are sceptical—we like scepticism; scepticism is good. The danger is that it tips over into outright cynicism. The more transparent the measures in the Bill can be, and the clearer it is that people understand they can trust the system—and that they can trust that political parties and candidates, when standing for office, are held to high standards—the better it will be. The concern is that the technology is outweighing the ability of Committees like this one and legislation like this Bill to do the job they set out to do.
Paul Holmes
Q
These quotes are from your briefing, Chris, if I may plagiarise and read them out. A former Minister said that more needs to be done to deal with hostile actors. My boss, James Cleverly, has said that the Conservatives would support
“sensible, proportionate measures to ensure that AI-generated political material is clearly labelled and subject to transparency as a requirement”.—[Official Report, 2 March 2026; Vol. 781, c. 635.]
Zöe Franklin, who serves on this Committee, said that section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 needs to be updated to
“explicitly criminalise the use of AI and deepfakes”.—[Official Report, 2 March 2026; Vol. 781, c. 651.]
Your briefing also mentions what Martin Wrigley and Alex Barros-Curtis said. Emily Darlington, with her two excellent amendments, has tried to tackle this issue.
What interactions have you both had with officials in the Department to see how far you can get in probing and trying to get these issues included in the Bill in the first place? What would you say to the Committee about Emily Darlington’s new clauses 22 and 24?
Chris Morris: Overall, both our organisations are talking to officials all the time, so the doors are open, which is good. Part of the problem with the debate about deepfakes is that, in my opinion, some people want to go too far. It is worth exploring the idea of criminalising deepfakes as essentially identity theft, but I would have a lot of caution around that.
It is good to explore those policy options, but we are much more in favour of transparency of labelling. We have suggested an amendment that is very specific about the way that political deepfakes can be labelled. If you go down the road of criminalisation, you come to a very difficult line about where satire suddenly becomes criminal. Nobody wants to factcheck satire, and nobody wants to make satire illegal.
Again, we have to start looking at some of these things in a slightly different way to take account of the way that technology has made it incredibly easy for anyone to create new information just like that. That is the world in which we are living. Trying to criminalise some of those things would be a dangerous path to go down, but clear labelling—transparency of source—is absolutely key.
Azzurra Moores: I would echo Chris’s point. We are incredibly grateful to the officials we have spent many months talking to. They have been incredibly constructive and open to hearing these recommendations. We are sitting in front of you because all those recommendations have not made it into the Bill.
Part of the reason Emily has put forward so many amendments is because these issues deserve to be debated by parliamentarians, but they also deserve to be debated by the people they are impacting. A lot of the things we are looking at here will impact every Member around this table, and it is for you to decide how you tackle them.
You have mentioned a couple of Emily Darlington’s amendments, and I want to turn to new clause 10. You mentioned section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, and I thought it might be worth clarifying that, while this measure is something she has put forward, with Demos and Full Fact support, it is actually a recommendation that came long before. It came out of the Speaker’s Conference, which I know many members of the Committee were part of, and it is something to which the Government have now responded by saying, “We understand that this is important.”
New clause 10, if anything, is just a vehicle for the Government to action something they have already said could be really valuable. It would not create new law or new bounds to discuss free speech; all it would do is say that deepfakes exist as a medium through which you must not make false statements about another candidate. It is a very simple amendment that asks the Government to publish legal guidance, so that there is no uncertainty among officials, regulators or the police. It is quite a simple approach, and that is what we have felt is the most important way forward. These things have been discussed for a long time, and the amendments are allowing them to be discussed within the scope of the Bill.
Paul Holmes
Q
Very quickly, as I know other people want to ask questions, I can see why people would want to support new clause 24’s repository of digital political advertising. One of the drawbacks that I think we can see in the new clause, which I want to strengthen, is that the Electoral Commission obviously will have responsibility for establishing a repository of paid-for digital political advertising within the 72-hour window. Where do you both think is the ideal location for that repository? Where would it sit? Would it sit with a Government Department or in a Government agency? Who would be the regulator, and who would be the manager and data controller of that repository? Do you have a preference for how that might be legislated for, such as in a new amendment?
Azzurra Moores: Our original preference was for this to sit with Ofcom. To be frank with the Committee, when this amendment was tabled, there was pushback on including any new powers for Ofcom in the Bill. At the moment, new clause 24 puts those powers on the Electoral Commission, and I personally do not mind who holds that power. I do not think it particularly matters, and it is really for Members to decide themselves.
What matters are the principles that we are trying to discuss here. We want to give voters the ability to verify whether a political ad is real, and we want to allow them to do that in real time. We have given scope for 72 hours, but we would obviously hope that it would be sooner. We also want those adverts to be transferred to the National Archives so that, in years to come, we understand how elections were fought.
Who holds or pays for that? I think that is really a matter for the Committee. We can discuss in detail whether it should be Ofcom or the Electoral Commission, but I think we need to make sure that we agree on the principle that elections are no longer fought just in person; they are fought online, and we therefore need really stringent measures to understand how elections were fought in years to come.
Chris Morris: But I would argue that it should not be a Government Department, which you suggested as a possibility. I think it should be Ofcom or the Electoral Commission, and I think the Electoral Commission would be happy to take on that responsibility. Again, it comes back to the issue of transparency, as people deserve to be able to see what is there. It is important not only for researchers but for ordinary voters, because they are bombarded from so many angles with advertising of various kinds. Creating a repository would be a big democratic step forward.
Paul Holmes
I would be one of the people sad enough to go to the National Archives to look at them, so I am fully in favour of it.
Azzurra Moores: Me too.
Chris Morris: See you there.
Samantha Dixon
Q
Chris Morris: It is not all doom and gloom. If we take the example of digital imprints, measures have been taken to extend the digital imprint regime. Our argument is simply that it does not go far enough, and it should go further. For example, it should cover things like fake newspapers or websites, which can be set up in seconds, that do not include their political party affiliation. The digital imprint regime is being slightly improved by the Bill, but it is simply not ambitious enough.
We also have to think not just of 2026, but of 2029. If you look at how technology has changed since the last general election in 2024, it is almost in a different league. I regularly ask my head of AI, “Where are we going to be in three years’ time?”, and he usually says, “I’m not sure where we are going to be in three months’ time.” We need to have the flexibility to make sure that the measures are as wide as possible, because even if we broaden them in the way that we suggest to include a wider variety of things, by 2029 we may be looking back and saying that it probably was not enough.
Azzurra Moores: It is very hard to disagree with Chris. The imprints work is huge progress. Obviously, it could go further, but I appreciate that a lot of the things we are asking for were not in scope when the Bill was being drafted. Does it cover the issues we are talking about? No, because it never intended to. That is where we are saying there is a real opportunity for the Bill to go further and be wider.
While it may have started with a narrow scope, perhaps once you hear what Philip Rycroft says through his review—and read our amendments slightly further—it will be appreciated that there is an opportunity to say, “How else can we make the Bill safeguard elections for the future?”
Chris Morris: To add to that, on a slightly different part of the legislation, it is good that the Electoral Commission will have greater powers on information sharing and enforcement, but we would like to see it have greater powers on information gathering.
There is a bit of a gap on who is responsible for regulating in that area. We would have liked to see that covered in the Online Safety Act 2023 and given to Ofcom. That did not happen, but one thing that could and should happen in this legislation is giving the Electoral Commission the power to compel people to hand over information or documents really quickly, such as in the heat of an election campaign, without having to turn it into a formal investigation, which as you probably know is laborious and takes time. A lot of this is about agility as well as transparency.
Paul Holmes
Q
I have taken great pleasure in reading all the evidence that has come in today. There are some bits I agree with—particularly from Dr Hawley and Dr Power—but there are some recommendations that I would be concerned about if we started to implement. Sorry, Mr Hames, but I am going to focus on the other two witnesses first. First, where do you see the balance between the freedom to practise democracy and overburdensome restrictions that could harm transparency and restrict voter interaction with the party political process?
We have heard this morning that there is a perception that overseas voters are finding it incredibly hard to engage with voting and have many obstacles to voting. You have a proposal that any overseas voter wishing to be considered a permissible donor should also be a UK-registered taxpayer and have submitted at least one non-zero tax return in the two years prior to making the donation. Does that not risk creating two tiers of voter—well, we already have that, but exacerbating it? For example, someone in receipt of benefits or who falls underneath the tax threshold in this country is allowed to vote. Why should they be allowed to vote, if an overseas voter who does not pay tax should not be allowed to vote? That is to Dr Power, then I will come back with another question.
Dr Power: There is a two-tier system, effectively, if you have overseas voters and overseas taxpayers, and UK-based taxpayers. It is pretty easy to draw a distinction between where the level of threat is and where the level of overburdensome regulation is, if you will.
I sometimes get concerned when I hear about how this approach can be overly burdensome. It is often used as a crutch to prevent genuine weaknesses in the system being dealt with. I do not think it is too much to ask of people who live overseas, who might well be slightly more politically exposed, to show that they are also engaging with the British system and paying tax in that respect. I do not necessarily have concerns that that creates a two-tier system—people are allowed to donate in the UK, of course, and people are allowed to donate overseas. Of course, if they lived overseas and did not pay tax, they could donate under the £500 limit.
Paul Holmes
Q
“Parties are increasingly building up their war chests well before the run-up to elections and engaging in permanent campaigning. This can have an impact on subsequent elections; as the Committee for Standards on Public Life…noted in its 2021 report”.
It is always going to be the case that political parties have to fundraise to communicate with the electorate. Where is the balance? What I could not quite work out from that submission is where you see the balance between restricting fundraising and keeping communications with the electorate going over that 18 months, rather than seeing it as campaigning? I might not be clear, but I am trying to see where you see that balance coming through.
Dr Susan Hawley: This is not about stopping it; it is about having limits apply across the annual period. An amendment that relates to the digital campaigning side has already been tabled. That is a recognition that we are in an age of permanent campaigning and to make sure that the public know what is being spent to influence them. It is about transparency and fairness, because if some parties are able to keep a lot of money in those pre-regulated periods and others are not, an imbalance is created when it comes to the election. It is about transparency and fairness.
Paul Holmes
Q
“Prohibit crypto donations until/unless…crypto currency becomes much more widely used by a greater cross-section of the population”.
That is something that needs to be seriously explored, because of evidence given to us earlier in Committee about the lack of regulation that has caught up with something that is to me completely not understandable. You support that proposal, Dr Hawley, because it is your proposal, but do the other two witnesses support an interim ban on cryptocurrency donations until the regulatory framework has caught up? Also, if we get a suitable regulatory framework, do you think such donations should be re-established or do you think that they should just be banned permanently?
Duncan Hames: We do support a moratorium for the purposes you describe. How temporary it should be depends on whether it is possible to address the risks. At such point as Parliament is confident that other forms of payment carry no additional risk to sterling or even cash, then the case for the moratorium would not be as strong. Right now, it is an absolute minefield to try to work out exactly where this money originates, which drives a coach and horses through the existing rules we have on political finance.
Paul Holmes
Thank you. Dr Power?
Dr Power: We are short on time, so I will say yes, and you can refer to my evidence. The only thing I would add is that one of the concerns we have about crypto-currency generally is its ability to supercharge donations below £500, which is underneath the check for permissibility. If that is a particular concern with cryptocurrency, there is a case for not only banning it, but bringing down the level of the permissibility requirement. In my submission, I suggest £50, which aligns with the candidate regime, because that would create a further barrier to that particular concern.
Samantha Dixon
Q
Dr Susan Hawley: We welcome the introduction of the “know your donor” regime, and the clarifications that it will have robust penalties for parties and candidates who do not undertake proper risk assessments. I am afraid that it currently needs some tweaks to be strengthened.
Obviously, we do not want to impose too much of a burden on parties but, if we are addressing foreign interference, it is very odd that the current “know your donor” policy does not say anything about addressing the potential source of wealth from high-risk jurisdictions or politically exposed persons. That is our first point. Any other regulated sector would and does need to address those risks.
Secondly, as the policy is currently framed, we think there is far too much discretion for political parties to decide what the risks are. That is unhelpful, because there will be inconsistent application of risk assessments across parties. That discretion should be reduced.
Finally, we have concerns that the fact that the Electoral Commission’s guidance can essentially be changed by the Secretary of State could lead to it being completely overridden, and that would be really problematic. We would like to see safeguards to ensure that cannot happen if there is to be a power for the Secretary of State to amend the Electoral Commission’s guidance.
Paul Holmes
Q
Part of my concern about this Government’s approach to legislation is that we very often see a jumping to legislate before the evidence is there, and then a backtracking on a number of things. For example, we had a planning and infrastructure Bill being implemented before a devolution Bill, and that devolution Bill cancelled elections to enable things to be delivered, but the elections were then forced back on. It seems that this Government do not think through public policy properly, and I think the Bill is no exception.
It seems odd to me that the Government asked Philip Rycroft to conduct a review into election interference, but they have then introduced a Bill that is bringing forward a number of measures in the same field. As a result, the Bill may go through the vast majority of its parliamentary stages and then rely on secondary legislation, which is a concern that many professors outlined earlier.
Have you made any representations to other Ministers in the Department or to No. 10 for a delay in this legislation, so that the Rycroft review can report and develop recommendations? You could then come back to the House and form a cross-party Committee to see whether those recommendations can be implemented, rather than following this hotchpotch approach that will see the Bill passed, only for a review to then make a number of recommendations on the same subject matter. Does that not seem odd to you?
Samantha Dixon: Last July, the statement of policy was set out in Parliament, so there was quite a considerable amount of time before the introduction of the Bill. You have seen policy developing over that time.
The conviction of Nathan Gill, which is why the Secretary of State asked Philip Rycroft to undertake the review, was a pivotal moment that highlighted and brought together a number of the issues that the witnesses have talked about today. The Secretary of State set the terms of reference for that review very carefully, but I think that Philip Rycroft indicated that he would act with speed. While I have not met him to date, I know that many people have, including members of this Committee, because his door has been very open to those who want to talk to him. I anticipate that his recommendations will come forward soon, and it is the Government’s intention to listen closely and carefully to what he brings forward.
The Bill, as you will know from Second Reading, is a carry-over Bill, which gives us an opportunity, as we go forward, to consider the recommendations. It is likely that our Committee will finish around the time that we are prorogued, and that Report will come in the second Session of this Parliament. That pause is being provided to us by parliamentary time.
Paul Holmes
Q
I have one more question, which is about digital ID. Since this Government were elected, fairly and resoundingly, it has been clear that they have a problem with the previous Government’s measures on digital ID. Almost every witness today has outlined that the Government’s proposals on bank cards as a potential form of ID are not a good idea; they said that that would not increase security at polling stations or people’s security over their vote, but actually reduce it.
Will you listen to those witnesses and give a commitment to the Committee to go back to the Department and remove bank cards as an acceptable form of ID? Can you outline to the Committee how showing a card with a name on guarantees that the person who is turning up at the polling station is the named person, and how that is fundamentally different to the old system, where a polling card could be taken to a polling station and a vote be given out?
Samantha Dixon: I think that the integrity of the UK banking system is such that the possession of a bank card requires a degree of ID that is necessary and appropriate. We have to remember that prior to the 2022 Act, there was no ID requirement at all. We have also heard evidence that instances of fraud were extremely low. The introduction of the bank card ID is important because it is widely held by the population, in particular by under-represented groups including 16 and 17-year-olds. I have heard the evidence that the Committee has heard; none the less, I think the inclusion of UK-issued bank cards is an important addition to voter ID, and one that we should continue.
Paul Holmes
Q
One of the witnesses today suggested that you could have automatic enrolment to voter identification paperwork or digital ID; that is something we would support. What problem are you trying to solve in trying to bring in a bank card as a possible type of identification, when that does not prove your identity? A very minor number of people are affected by this. How much do you anticipate that a bank card will make a difference to the numbers we have heard about today?
Samantha Dixon: We are talking about people who have the right to vote, but are excluded from voting because they do not have the appropriate ID. Although I accept that many people have passports and driving licences, not all do, and many more people have bank cards. The legitimacy of the banking system in the UK means that those cards should be used by younger people in particular, but could be used by any person who wants to vote in person at a polling station.
Paul Holmes
I find it interesting that most of the people who we consider to be academics, and have made their life’s profession the integrity of the election system, are not in favour of it, but the Government are choosing to go ahead with it anyway. We will look at that further in line-by-line scrutiny. Thank you very much for your time this afternoon.
Lisa Smart
Q
It is clear from all the evidence we have heard today that all the witnesses welcome a number of the steps in the Bill, but a number of them expressed disappointment that the scope had been written so narrowly and that it does not stand up to the moment of crisis and peril that our democracy faces. If the Government think that first past the post is the right system, why not have a national commission on the voting system to test that thesis?
Samantha Dixon: The Government believe that the voting systems that we use to elect our representatives are really at the heart of our democracy; they are of fundamental importance. We welcome views and feedback on how democracy can be improved. I am grateful for the interest that you have shown in this particular area, but I can confirm that we are content with the voting system that we currently use in general elections, and we have no plans to establish such a commission.
For UK parliamentary elections, we believe that the first-past-the-post system establishes a really strong link between the constituency and the representative. Although it may not be perfect, we believe it is well understood by the electorate and the communities that we represent. When a seat needs to be filled in Parliament or a council, for example, that link between the representative and those they represent is important. First past the post is appropriate for that system.
There are occasions for other voting systems for wider electorates, and this Bill will make provision for them. For example, for a mayoral election, we are in the process of bringing forward legislation to revert that system back to supplementary voting. When it is a broader constituency—a mayoral area that may cover many constituencies—we accept that that voting system is more appropriate. But at this stage, for council wards and parliamentary constituencies, we remain of the view that first past the post is the best system.
Representation of the People Bill (First sitting)
Paul Holmes ExcerptsWednesday 18th March 2026
(5 days, 22 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Representation of the People Bill 2024-26 View all Representation of the People Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 18 March 2026 - (18 Mar 2026)
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
In the interests of transparency, I have met various witnesses in other settings in my official capacity as shadow Minister.
The Chair
We now hear oral evidence from the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, and the Local Government Association. As I have said, we must stick to the timings in the programme order that the Committee has agreed. For this session, we have until 10.05 am. As I have indicated, Ms Yule is on her way and will join us as soon as she is here, but we are very pleased that Councillor Bentley and Mr Stanyon have been able to join us at this point. Would you both please introduce yourselves? I will then open the meeting to questions from the Committee.
Councillor Bentley: I am Councillor Kevin Bentley. I am the senior vice-chairman of the Local Government Association.
Peter Stanyon: I am Peter Stanyon, the chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators.
Paul Holmes
Q
My first question is a very broad one for both of you. Have the Government given you enough time to prepare for the changes proposed in the legislation? Secondly, the Government propose bringing in automatic registration. Can you outline some of the challenges or problems that might result from that? Thirdly—to get my questions out of the way—there are proposals to allow, for example, bank cards and non-photographic identification as voter ID at the polling station. As the chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, do you have a concern about that? Do you perceive that the secure ballot process could be harmed as a result of those changes?
Peter Stanyon: I shall take those in order. There is never enough time to introduce significant change, albeit that the very fact we are into the parliamentary process now is really important so we can look towards getting the Act in place. It is clear that, in lots of places, the Bill is setting a framework for what will come, and we are pleased that the officials who we are working with are already working on the secondary legislation to go alongside it. The devil is very much in the detail when it comes to how that will be delivered. Much depends on how we can deliver the policy intent behind the Bill, so that the polling stations and administrators can deliver it in time.
I think that the significant change will be noted. Friction is the wrong word, but there may be some clunkiness in certain areas where we are not quite clear where we are going with the overall detail at this stage. That is being worked up. We would always echo—we are pleased to hear the Government echo it as well—the Gould principle of trying to make any legislative changes six months ahead of any major poll. If we can get that to nine months or 12 months, it will make registration even easier.
We do have some concerns about the timescales around the introduction of voting for 16 and 17-year-olds. Those timescales do not mirror what happened in Scotland and Wales, where, in broadbrush terms, there was a year’s lead-in for 16 and 17-year-olds being able to vote at elections. In this Bill, it becomes almost automatic, and that could mean that the preparatory time for getting everybody on that we want to is not there in quite the same way as it was for Scotland and Wales. We hope that that can be looked at, so we get it in a more measured way and do not miss individuals out simply because of the timetable—although we fully appreciate the reasons why.
On automatic voter registration, we have looked at what happened in the pilots in Wales. There is some learning, but it is a very broad area at this stage. What are the data sources that we are looking at? What is the process to be followed? How does that interrelate with the current individual electoral registration system? A lot of communication will be needed to understand these parts of the principles.
Interestingly, one of the things that came out of the pilots in Wales was the lack of understanding of the need to be involved in the electoral process. It becomes a much wider communication process about, “These are the benefits of doing so.” We cannot solve all problems with the introduction of that sort of system; there are a lot of things needed alongside that. I do not know if Councillor Bentley wants to come in before I come on to the voter ID pilot.
Councillor Bentley: I am happy for you to continue, and then I can answer all three questions.
Paul Holmes
Q
Peter Stanyon: We have severe reservations about bank cards being added to the available lists. The simple reason is that when voter ID came in in the first place, it set the bar by being very clear that photographic ID is required in polling stations. We are unsure about what can come through, because our understanding at this stage—again, this will become clear as the secondary legislation rolls through—is that it will not be a full name on a bank card. For example, it can be an initial. How can you guarantee that it is the right person before you? If you have a photograph—regardless of whether that is the right or wrong policy—at the end of the day you have something to hang that on going forward.
The other challenge is the range of bank cards that are available. What is a bank card? We all know the major institutions, but there are lots more out there now. That adds a degree of confusion for the staff in polling stations. There could be a tension there, which we see already. Someone might bring in their passport, for example, and the staff do not deem that to be of a satisfactory level. Then they produce a bank card, and it is accepted. There is a counterintuitive nature to that side of things, so we do have significant concerns with regard to that part of the system.
We may be opening up the ID possibilities for 16 and 17-year-olds, but we would much rather see us take more of a digital ID-type approach—for example, by having a digital VAC, or voter authority certificate. Most of the time, I bank using my phone rather than my bank cards. Will it have the effect that we are looking for? We have significant concerns about adding additional confusion, despite the fact that we understand the reasons why the policy was put forward in the first place.
Paul Holmes
Q
Councillor Bentley: I do agree with that. Of course, bank cards can be cloned and other people can get hold of them. There is no photographic evidence, as we know, and I agree with everything my colleague has just said about that. Another element that we have not considered is: if someone should use a bank card fraudulently to vote, whose fault is that? Let me be clear that there should be no blame whatsoever on polling staff, should that take place. If this goes ahead, that needs to be made very clear.
Anyone can obtain a bank card. You can have “K Bentley”, “Kevin Bentley” or “Kevin Paul Bentley” on those bank cards. For all I know, there may be other Kevin Paul Bentleys—there probably are—and they could use those cards. You have heard why I think that is not a great system. With voter ID, you need photographic evidence to be able to prove someone’s identity, and people can register via their local authorities.
May I tackle some of the other questions as well? I think you have heard a very good answer about there being enough time. There is a cost element to it as well, and, being from the LGA, you would expect me to say that any extra burden put on local government should be funded properly. We require extra staff to be able to do that, and the extra responsibility for 16-year-olds adds extra pressure to staff—that is not a comment on whether 16-year-olds should vote, but staff would need to be brought in to do that above and beyond their normal duties to run elections, so it needs to be thought about.
On automatic registration, all I would say, and this is just an observation, is that in this country we have the right not to vote, and therefore we need to be very careful about people being put on there automatically. I think that needs to be tested with the public more; we need the public’s opinion on whether they want to be registered automatically. That is a comment, rather than me saying whether we are for or against it, but we need to ask the public what they think about it further.
Paul Holmes
Q
“bank cards that are issued subject to a search of a consumer’s credit file conducted in the way set out in the amendment”
could be used as voter ID, as we do with loans and the like. We understand that it is not a brilliant amendment, because we do not believe that that part of the legislation should be included at all, but do you think that having a bank card with a hard credit check would make any difference to the process, or—this is probably for you, Mr Stanyon—would it be better if that was not included in the legislation?
Peter Stanyon: I think the latter in terms of the uncertainty. The difficulty in putting that in place is that the individuals dealing with this at the polling stations are effectively volunteers. We already have a list of 23 versions of voter ID available, and it is quite a complicated process. Ultimately, if a bank card is presented and it is to the standard that the staff have been trained to receive, they will accept it, so the hard credit check thing will be more for the central control of the election than it would be for the staff at the station.
Councillor Bentley: I agree. I think that it is difficult to have that included, but I would re-emphasise that if it is, you must be very clear that it is not local government staff who will be at fault if someone commits an offence.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Samantha Dixon)
Q
Peter Stanyon: The first thing to say is that, as an association, we are pleased that the vast majority of the Bill echoes what we put in our blueprint following the last general election; there were lots of issues with the actual mechanics of the election. There are the more high-profile things such as votes at 16 or automatic registration, but if you ask an administrator, we are more concerned about the mechanics of delivering the election.
It is accepted that the timetable will not extend beyond 25 days, and there are lots of reasons for that. However, we feel that the moves to alter the deadlines for nominations to be received and to move the deadline for the receipt of postal vote applications go a long way to providing that wiggle room within the elections timetable. That will allow administrators to work with their suppliers to get postal votes out and to ensure that there are no issues on that side of the process.
There are lots of things in the Bill regarding the status of the returning officer in the local authority, and we echo the view that it should be a senior officer of the local authority. How that will be policed is another matter, but it gives the local authority the ability to assist the returning officer, because they will have that punching power within the local authority itself.
There are also lots of things about the postal vote replacements that were learned at the last general election. We are very reliant on third parties; once a postal vote leaves the control of the returning officer, Royal Mail will do all it can to deliver that, but there will be breakdowns in the system. The fact that the Bill gives the ability to put the elector back first in those situations is really important, because it is not their fault if they have not been able to receive a postal vote.
There are lots of really good bits in the Bill. The only areas where we have concerns relate to things I have mentioned already: bank cards, some things around the nominations process and the identity checks being proposed, and the lead-in time for the 16 and 17-year-olds. Those are the three big areas that we have concerns about. The rest of it makes absolute sense in terms of the mechanics of delivering the election and should address some of the issues that were quite high profile at the last general election.
Councillor Bentley: Anything that encourages people and makes voting easier has to be welcomed. That is very important.
I will pull out two things in addition to what my colleague said. One thing that we are learning about now —it has started to happen for the first time—is re-registering for a postal vote. That needs to be much better co-ordinated and to have much better communications. We are seeing already people who have not re-registered because they did not realise that they needed to. It depends on the local authority and how and when they communicate, but more of a national campaign would be helpful in all that.
The other piece is around harassment during elections. It is a specific part of the Bill, but I think it is very important. While freedom of speech is very important in our country, freedom to harass certainly is not. That needs to be emphasised to people. What is being proposed is right, but we need to emphasise that more. People should be encouraged to stand for public, elected office, but we hear anecdotally that many are put off by the harassment they receive on social media and so on. Freedom of speech is very important; freedom to harass certainly is not. I would like to really see that emphasised within the Bill. [Interruption.]
The Chair
Mr Holmes, did you want to ask Ms Yule anything? I will then come to Ms Smart.
Paul Holmes
Q
Welcome, Ms Yule. The other witnesses would argue that the Government’s intention is to make voting easier and extend the franchise. I put to you the question I asked them earlier: do you consider that local authorities and chief executives have been consulted enough at this stage—notwithstanding the fact that the Bill has to go through its passage—about the proposals in the legislation? Are there burdens that you are not quite sure you can meet yet on behalf of your members?
Emily Yule: On behalf of Solace, I have been involved in lots of conversations around the development of the strategy and the Bill. We have really appreciated that collaboration and that ability to influence the design of the provisions. I always say that the devil is in the detail, so implementation is going to be really important. Chief executives, returning officers and electoral registration officers need to have a clear understanding of the timelines for implementation and the guidance, so that we can ensure consistent application of those new provisions.
In my view, consistency is what builds credibility and trust in the democratic process. At the moment, I do not think that there is huge concern among the sector that any of the items are undeliverable, but we would, of course, always ask for resourcing to be considered and any new burdens funded to put those implementation plans in place.
Lisa Smart
Q
I have two strands of questioning; one is around timing. The Bill proposes some changes around postal votes and bringing forward the dates for postal votes. We have seen too many people miss out on their opportunity to vote because of some of the issues relating to Royal Mail that you talked about, Mr Stanyon. That is particularly acute with those living overseas for a time, whether they are serving in the armed forces or otherwise.
We all welcome the bringing forward of the dates, but can you say a little more about how many of those issues will be addressed by changing the dates for postal votes? Are there other measures—for example, allowing people to print their own ballot papers or to submit their vote at overseas embassies or consulates—that you would see as useful in enabling more people to vote?
Peter Stanyon: In terms of the practicalities of the proposed time changes, the best evidence I can give is from the last general election—the parliamentary election a couple of years ago—when you saw significant spikes in applications towards the end of the period. The date is currently 11 working days before the poll; it is proposed to move that to 14. That has meant that there is a big pinch point—not just for the electoral registration officer, who has to process the applications, but because the Elections Act has brought in additional identity checks that now need to be done for postal voters.
Currently, there is almost a perfect storm 12 and 11 days before the election with registration applications and applications for postal votes. Moving that deadline slightly further back allows the same work to be done—checking identities and physically getting the data to the printers—so that the packs can be produced and got out three days earlier than they can now. That will not go every step of the way to solving the overseas issue, because you are still talking about 12 or 11 days for ballots to go out and back; you are relying not just on Royal Mail but on overseas postal services as well. To answer the first question, this is a positive step, but it must be seen in that light—it is moving in the right direction, but it will not solve every issue that has been identified.
As far as overseas electors are concerned, this has been an age-old issue. I was thinking the other day that I have been in the industry for over 40 years—that is scary—and I have seen significant change in that time. Overseas electors have always been an issue because you are physically getting the ballot paper to them and back. It is an area that can be investigated, but we need to be careful about it. Could you have things such as printing your own ballot papers? Could you have an overseas electors constituency, which would make things slightly different? Could you have online voting, for example? I am not proposing any of those. It is an area that needs to be really thought through: what is beneficial to the elector or the voter, but also what is suitable for the system we are trying to maintain?
At the moment, the system is very paper-based and secure, but we already know it has those issues. This is not a new thing; it is just that there are far more postal voters than there used to be. The issue has been here for the whole of my career.
Councillor Bentley: All I would add to that is timetabling and making sure there is enough time for local authorities to do the printing. I am reminded that the cancellation of a whole slew of elections was proposed and then suddenly they were not, and everyone is on catch-up to make sure it all happens. They will do it, because we have brilliant staff in local government, but it is not always about them—it is about the suppliers for the printing, the paper and all the rest of it.
Provided that time is built in to make that happen, then this is a good thing. Anything that makes it easier for people to vote and participate in elections has to be a good thing. Postal voting is increasing, but we must build in the correct timetable so that authorities can get the printing done.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from the Electoral Commission. Again, we must stick to the timings in the sittings motion that the Committee has agreed. For this session, we have until 10.25 am. If anyone wants to ask our witness a question, it would be helpful if they indicated that early, because then I am more likely to be able to come to you and keep things moving. Could the witness identify himself for the Committee?
Vijay Rangarajan: Thank you, Chair. I am Vijay Rangarajan, chief executive of the Electoral Commission.
Paul Holmes
Q
What is your view, as far as you are able to give it, on the fact that the Government have gone forward with landmark and quite detailed legislation, but at the same time have asked Philip Rycroft to conduct a review of campaign finance and foreign interference, which bears no resemblance to what the Government are proposing during this legislative process? Have you made representations to the Government that this legislation should be paused until we have the conclusions of Dr Rycroft’s review?
Vijay Rangarajan: Thank you for the question. No, we do not think the legislation should be paused, partly because of the timing issues that you covered with the previous witnesses. Unless this legislation goes through fairly swiftly, there is little chance of the crucial changes it makes being in place in time for the next general election or beyond.
There are a number of really quite urgent changes, particularly in the political finance area. We have been making recommendations since, I think, 2013 to tighten up on unincorporated associations, for example, and to look at the company donation provisions and at “know your donor” checks. We really welcome the fact that they are in the Bill, and we would like to go further in some areas. However, for those provisions to be in place—this is probably the tightest of the timing issues for the Bill—there will need to be the primary legislation, then secondary legislation, then guidance and then, crucially, quite a period of training and guidance for parties themselves so that they are able to get their systems in place and implement this in the financial year of a general election. That is a lot of steps to go through, so we would like to see this done fairly soon to alleviate, quite rightly, what the AEA and others just said on timing.
We also really welcome the Rycroft review. It looks as if it is going further than just finance. It may make changes; I think the Government have said that they will take that on board in the Bill. It is very helpful to have a look at the broader issues of foreign interference—for example, through online media and many other areas than just money. We see a whole range of threats, which the Committee may want to get into further.
Paul Holmes
Q
Could you give us your thoughts, if you have any, on the idea of a digital repository and whether there would be a role for the Electoral Commission, as the regulator, in ensuring that that information is passed on and the provisions are enforced?
Vijay Rangarajan: I think that the digital imprints parts of the Bill are very helpful indeed. We would also like to add the party—saying on the digital imprint which party had actually financed that area.
The transparency of the digital imprints regime has really helped. We run an imprints portal, and we had a lot of references to it, all of which were sorted out at the time. That was mostly small parties or candidates who just had not followed the guidance and not done what was required. I know that that comes as a real annoyance for other candidates and larger parties as well, but fast action through the imprints portal was actually more effective than a longer-running investigation or using criminal sanctions.
We also think that having some kind of a repository, for both imprints and a lot of wider digital material—for example, political advertising—is a real help for voters to see what is being said across the political spectrum. We are seeing a segmentation of elements of the political debate into closed online groups, and that can be quite corrosive of trust.
Paul Holmes
You will have noticed some scepticism from the previous panel—I do not think it is ungenerous to say that—about the proposals for using bank cards as a form of identification. In your role, do you have concerns about the Government’s proposals to water down photo voter ID?
Vijay Rangarajan: We are also concerned about the bank cards proposal; that is largely for the administrative reasons the previous witnesses set out, so I will not repeat those. We do see growing public support for voter ID—73% of the British public are now in favour of it, up from 65% in 2024—and the way we have implemented it has broadly worked. About 0.1% of people in Great Britain were unable to vote, because of voter ID, and it definitely put off some voters, so there is a slight cost to this. However, in Northern Ireland, after 25 years of voter ID, it has become part of the fabric of how people vote.
Rather than continually changing the system, it would be helpful to allow a broad range of voter IDs—which should probably stay with the existing security standard to maintain public trust—and give some stability to the system. In time, people will get used to it; we are already well above 90% of people knowing that they have to bring voter ID. Again, before this May’s elections, and before every election, we will run, in areas where voter ID is needed, a campaign to remind people to bring voter ID.
Samantha Dixon
Q
Vijay Rangarajan: Thank you, Minister. Broadly, we very much welcome the Bill. If I might go into a little detail about which areas, it picks up some of the crucial changes after the 2024 general election. For example, the change from 11 days to 14 days on postal voting will make a real difference, particularly in Scotland. We saw real issues about that in our post-poll report; I will not run through all of those, but the changes in the strategic review part are very important.
As I said, we very much welcome the changes on campaign finance. We would like to see that go further in the company donations area; our proposal is to use profit, not turnover, as the metric for what a company should be able to donate, and it should be able to donate that profit only once every year.
We strongly welcome the provisions on automatic voter registration, because up to 8 million eligible British voters are not on the register. That is even more important with the other part of the Bill—votes at 16—coming in. Being able to add attainers at 14 and 15, and then letting 16 and 17-year-olds be on the register, will remove a very clear barrier. Last week, we had “Welcome to Your Vote Week”, and that issue was raised quite broadly by youth organisations as yet another barrier for 16-year-olds. We also strongly welcome the elements on candidate safety, and they should all help.
Overall, it is a very strong welcome: the Bill is necessary, and it picks up some long-standing recommendations, as I have said. We also warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to repeal the SPS—the strategy and policy statement—for exactly the reasons you have mentioned. The Bill will never completely fix everything. I think this will be the 27th Representation of the People Act, so there is a never-ending process of trying to keep this going. A lot of work needs to be done outside the Bill—for example, with the police or on social media—but it will distinctly help with many of the processes involved.
The Chair
Q
Dr Garland: Good morning. I am Jess Garland, director of policy and research at the Electoral Reform Society.
Paul Holmes
Q
Dr Garland, you identified in your evidence that you are in favour of relaxing voter ID from requiring photographic identification, and you cited a Cabinet Office report, “Securing the ballot”, which suggested including bank cards, signatures and date of birth checks. Could you elaborate on what, in your opinion, date of birth checks would look like for a person volunteering at a polling station? Could you explain to the Committee why you do not think that going from photographic ID to bank cards would relax security around someone being able to vote?
Dr Garland: Taking that first question, I think it is important that we go back to the origins of the policy. The report said clearly that we need to have something that is proportionate, which is where I think we need to start. What is the problem that we are trying to solve? I worry that we have moved very quickly to a very, very tight scheme that does not give voters other options. For instance, none of the currently accepted IDs are the sort of thing that people ordinarily carry, except for the over-60s bus pass. Most people are not carrying their passport around, so we have this problem of disenfranchising not just those who do not have access to those IDs, but also people who might have forgotten them on the day. That is why I think the suggestion of including bank cards has a lot of value, and digital ID is the same—the sort of thing you might have on your phone, as we heard earlier.
Under the scheme, we do not have any option for people in the polling station, which sets the current policy even further away from some of the strictest voter ID schemes around the world. We have a very strict scheme with very few options for voters, yet we see in the evidence that it has not really made any difference to claims of personation, which remain the same as before the scheme was introduced, and it is inconclusive as to whether it has enabled people to identify personation happening. I worry that we have walked into a position where the cure is something of a curse. We have seen many more people disenfranchised by the limitations of the scheme than have ever had their vote stolen through personation. You used the word “relaxing”, and I think it is rebalancing—it is bringing it back into proportion with the risk of personation that might exist.
Paul Holmes
Q
Dr Garland: I think we would need to know what exactly is happening. We have to be very clear on what we think the problem is in the first place, and of course we know where personation has been a problem. In Northern Ireland, for instance, many, many people were turning up to find that someone else had cast their vote. We do not have that evidence base across the whole UK.
There is no evidence in the first place of widespread personation, so we need to think about the impact of the scheme, and that impact has been at least 42,000 people losing their vote. I urge people to think about what it must feel like for a voter who has turned up to cast their vote in our democracy and been turned away, despite being eligible to vote. I think that is incredibly damaging for our democracy, and I urge the Committee to think about the wider picture on voter ID.
Paul Holmes
Q
Dr Garland: Three sets of elections have used voter ID. If we add up the voters who were turned away and failed to return with ID across the three sets of elections where we had voter ID—that includes two local and one general election—that is where the 42,000 comes from. It is Electoral Commission data on people who have got to the polling station and been registered, but then registered as not returning. Another percentage of voters just did not turn out in the first place, because of voter ID.
Paul Holmes
Q
Dr Garland: No. It was 16,000 at the general election—although I would say that even one voter is one too many.
Paul Holmes
I agree, but that is 0.1% of the total electorate. Briefly, Chair, may I ask about bank cards?
Paul Holmes
Q
Dr Garland: I go back to my point about needing something that people carry on them, which has their name on it and provides the base level of knowing who that person is, as the policy initially set out. We could achieve that in a number of ways. In the voter ID pilots poll cards were used, and those pilots with poll cards as an option saw the fewest number of people turned away, so we know that those more accessible forms of ID are going to be better for the scheme altogether.
For most people, however, bank cards have really good coverage. We also have to think about what newly enfranchised 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to access. That is part of the whole question of what we should be looking at—what will cause the least damage when it comes to people turning up to vote?
Samantha Dixon
Q
Dr Garland: Many of the changes feel to me that they have been a long time coming: we heard from the Electoral Commission, which made a lot of these recommendations, about tightening political finance many years ago. There have been the large gaps in the completeness of our electoral register since at least 2011, and the Electoral Commission’s feasibility study was back in 2019. A lot of the changes are therefore catching up, rather than keeping pace.
One area where it is challenging to keep pace is in the digital sphere and online campaigning, but also in political finance. The Bill currently does not address cryptocurrency, which is a fast-changing area, so there are certainly areas where it is difficult to keep pace. “Keeping pace” is an important way to think about it, because of course in a democracy, unless we are moving forwards, we are necessarily sliding backwards. That is a challenge. We have to keep changing in order to protect what we have.
The one area that has changed the most in the past two years has been the electoral landscape. We are seeing things that we have never seen before—massive party system fragmentation and huge amounts of voter volatility—and that is having an effect on the operation of our electoral system. I appreciate that that is not covered in the Bill, but that does feel like one area where the Bill might find itself a bit out of step with what is happening in the wider electoral landscape.
The Chair
Before I call Mr Holmes, it would be helpful if everyone asking questions indicated whether the question is for all the witnesses or an individual witness.
Paul Holmes
Q
My second question is a general question on votes at 16. The Government made a manifesto commitment to reduce the voting age to 16. Can our Scottish colleagues give an overview of the experience of advertising that and making sure to get maximum efficiency and registration before the first crucial elections at 16? What advice would you give the UK Government to make sure we get maximum registration and participation from a section of voters that has not had the vote for many years in England? Malcolm and Robert, maybe you can divide that question between you.
Karen Jones: Thank you very much for the question. As you say, we have had four pilots of automatic voter registration in Wales. Very recently—in December—the Electoral Commission produced a report setting out the evaluation of those four pilots. The main conclusion was that automatic registration should be rolled out in Wales; it added somewhere in the region of 14,500 names to the register, so it had a significant impact on its completeness. However, the report made some recommendations to the Welsh Government to consider before wider roll-out. A lot of those relate to making sure administrators have the time and resources to put the systems in place to support the new arrangements—for example, ensuring adequate data-matching expertise in councils to meet the task. There were also lessons around the optimal timings to undertake the various duties.
In terms of the proposals in this Bill, our major concern is the implementation timetable. If we had two different timetables for rolling in the AVR arrangements, that would place a great deal of burden on electoral teams. We would need to give that careful consideration, as well as ensuring that we do not introduce voter confusion, particularly if there were any differences in the franchises.
There are a number of things around the introduction of the UK Government’s proposals on AVR, set alongside what the Welsh Government intend to do, that we need to consider from an implementation point of view. I am sure this will be a theme throughout this evidence session, but we would welcome more alignment in policy terms between the UK Government and the devolved elections, because that makes it easier for voters and simpler for administrators, and probably also reduces the cost to the public purse. You will understand that I am not commenting on the policy position, but from the perspective of what is involved in implementing these changes.
Paul Holmes
Q
Karen Jones: Just to confirm, in the evaluation report I referred to—and I will send the details to the Clerk of the Committee after this evidence session, if you do not have that to hand—the addition of names to the register did not impact accuracy. Very few people chose to take their names off the register, so there was support from the general public for the exercise.
Paul Holmes
Q
Karen Jones: That is right. It is a small number, but as I say, the evaluation report sets out a lot of the detail.
Paul Holmes
Q
Malcolm Burr: Yes, happy to do that. We have had a successful experience in Scotland over many years of implementing voting for 16 and 17-year-olds and of course that means implementing voting preparation for 14 and 15-year-olds. I will let my colleague Mr Nicol speak to the practicalities of that.
I am very pleased to see the proposal in the Bill, as an electoral administrator, that there would be automatic additions to the UK parliamentary register of those already registered to vote. Consistency is always welcome, as is alignment at an administrative level. It helps the voter, the administrator and the process.
Your question also focused on engagement with young people, and I think that has been generally very successful. Across Scotland, there is Welcome to Your Vote Week activity in schools—in early March, for obvious reasons. That is universal. It is well received. It is updated to take account of feedback as well as changes. The independence referendum in 2014 saw a high level of voting across all age groups, and such academic research as there is shows that young people who have voted at the ages of 16 and 17 are highly likely to continue their participation in the future. All those are important points for consideration. It certainly has not caused significant issues. There are practical issues that we have to look at, of course. With voter ID for UK elections, we have to make sure that there is appropriate ID for young people of that age. There are also issues of data protection, but I will let my colleague, Mr Nicol, speak about those.
Paul Holmes
Mr Nicol, do you want to say anything?
Robert Nicol: Thank you. Malcolm covered an awful lot of what I had noted down, but you say, “How do we ensure that it becomes successful?” This is not a measure that I would necessarily recommend, but having a high-profile electoral event shortly after you introduce it— as happened with the young persons register in Scotland in 2013 and ’14 coinciding with the independence referendum—certainly embeds it in the minds of the population.
In terms of the practicalities—this cross-cuts a wee bit into automatic registration as well—we need to be aware that how data is held in different parts of the country can vary. I hate calling it data, because it is about individuals—individual electors and so on. For example, education data is held by local authorities in Scotland, so we utilise education lists from local authorities and from private schools to invite electors, young people, directly to register. That is from the age of 14 upwards. I think that it is also a welcome aspect of the Bill that there is clarity about it being from age 14 onwards, rather than the quite convoluted definition that was previously in place for 18-year-olds.
Clarity of messaging is really important. Malcolm rightly said that there is Welcome to Your Vote Week. There are also various outreach things. A number of years ago, when I was a lot younger, I went into schools myself and helped to try to enthuse young electors to get registered and suchlike. Various participation activities happen. I know that some people might think that this is a prime area for automatic registration, but I wonder whether an elector’s first experience of registering to vote being something that is done “to” them is necessarily the positive way to look forward.
Hopefully that explanation has helped a wee bit, inasmuch as we do try to engage with young people. One other really important thing, which I think Malcolm touched on, is that this is not just about getting people registered; it is about ensuring that they are enabled to exercise their vote. That relates to things like voter ID at polling stations, but also the ID checks that happen for postal votes. Making sure that that is appropriate for this age group as well and how it is administered will be important parts of this as we go forward.
Samantha Dixon
Q
Karen Jones: Thank you for the question, and thank you again, Minister, for the opportunity to contribute to the early stages of this Bill. We are really pleased to see a number of the long-standing proposals from administrators to make life a lot easier for voters and also administrators reflected in the Bill. We are very much supportive of that.
In terms of alignment, the devil will be in the detail, as we look at the rules for implementing the policies that the Bill contains. As I was saying about automatic voter registration, it will come down to the franchise and the timing elements. It may well be that we have to live with some disruption in the short term while we pursue greater alignment in the medium to long term. I think it is a step in the right direction, but more work will need to be done as we look at the detail of the Bill’s implementation.
Similarly, if there is a UK-wide approach to votes at 16 and 17, it will make it easier to engage with young people. We have found with votes at 16 and 17 in Senedd elections that, because we have years in between when young people are not casting their vote, the engagement can be a bit stop-start. But a consistent policy across the UK will make it much easier for us to work collectively to make sure that young people and others are educated as to why they need to participate in the democratic process and understand how to go about exercising the franchise they have been given.
Malcolm Burr: I do not have a lot to add, but alignment should be there unless there is a good policy reason for it not being there. Policy divergence is inherent in devolution—that is what devolution is about: there can be different policy choices in different areas—but administrative divergence should be avoided wherever possible.
This is the occasion to mention the Law Commission’s welcome recommendation that there should be a consolidation of electoral law as far as possible, because it is a highly complex set of legislation and regulation, and it is more than time for a consistent legislative framework governing all elections, recognising the policy divergences across the various nations. Unnecessary divergence leads to confusion for voters, as well as inconvenience to electoral staff, so alignment should be a very clear aim, except where there is a good principle or policy reason for not aligning.
Robert Nicol: Administrators can and do make difficult things work in the background. We absolutely recognise each Parliament’s right to legislate as it sees fit. The difficulty we have is when electors are asked to do something different for what they perceive to be the same thing. If an elector wants to register to vote, for example, and we say to them, “It’s okay, I’ve automatically registered you for this register, but you need to fill in that other form,” that not only makes me look daft as an electoral registration officer but causes confusion for the elector and does not help with overall confidence in the system. We have seen that recently with the postal vote divergence that happened, which has proven difficult and probably costly to stitch back together.
The Bill will enable people to register at 14. That does not align with Wales, but it aligns with Scotland, which is very welcome. There are other areas that are very welcome, but the Bill also has the potential to create different kinds of divergence if it is not implemented carefully. Administrators will do what they need to do, but think very, very carefully when asking an elector to do something different for what they perceive to be the same thing.
Rough Sleeping: Families with Children
Paul Holmes Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) on securing this debate. She is not just an hon. Lady; to me she is an hon. Friend, and I am delighted to respond to her today on the Opposition’s behalf. I even managed to get out of bed just to do it because she was leading this debate this morning.
The hon. Lady was absolutely right to say in her opening remarks that we should not be here this morning having to debate an issue such as one. However, while we do have to debate these issues, I am pleased that she is on the case and I look forward to working with her, being a successor to her as the shadow Minister with responsibility for homelessness. I know that the welfare of young people across this country, particularly those who have found themselves homeless, is at the heart of what she does, and I congratulate her again on securing this debate.
Rough sleeping among families with children represents one of the most visible and distressing signs of the housing crisis in our country. Behind every statistic is a child growing up without the security of a stable home, a family living with uncertainty, and communities struggling to cope with rising costs of living and other socioeconomic pressures. We can all agree across the House that this is not a matter to procrastinate or prevaricate about.
In its 2024 manifesto, the Labour party promised to,
“develop a new cross-Government strategy…to put Britain back on track to ending homelessness.”
That strategy was not published until 11 December 2025, which was much later than expected; indeed, it was at the tail end of this Session of Parliament. However, I remind the Minister, who I am pleased to see here in Westminster Hall this morning, that in a meeting she kindly offered on a cross-party basis, I assured her that the official Opposition and I, as the shadow Minister with responsibility for homelessness, are committed to working on a cross-party basis to make sure that this strategy works. My comments this morning do not signal that I demur from that approach. However, I will make some comments on some parts of the strategy and I will challenge the strategy regarding where we think it could go further.
My main concern about the homelessness strategy is this. The current time seemed to offer an opportunity, but although the Minister has grabbed that opportunity, it is an opportunity whereby the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government seems to be leading the search for a solution to homelessness, so the chance for a fundamental rewiring of how Government works to tackle homelessness has been missed. As I said, I make these comments in a constructive way. Nevertheless, I believe that the strategy lacks genuine cross-party ministerial oversight.
The strategy also lacks the cross-departmental approach that we need, particularly when we consider that homelessness is not just an issue that MHCLG must find a solution to. Homelessness also involves the Department for Education, the Department for Health and Social Care, and the Home Office, in the way that the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree described. For example, regarding the involvement of the Department for Health and Social Care, we need to get better at analysing the data around drug and alcohol discharges from hospital.
I am not convinced that the strategy, despite its good intentions overall, really takes the cross-ministerial approach where it needs to go. I look to the Minister to confirm to the Chamber this morning, when she responds to the debate, that she is chairing a cross-ministerial committee on this issue, and that she will continue to do so going forward. I also look to her to say how often that committee will meet.
The hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree mentioned the problem with data concerning immigration. She is absolutely right that the Home Office has been slightly let off the hook on this strategy; I look to the Minister to provide some reassurances on this data issue when she stands up shortly to respond to the debate.
I think that the strategy goes in the right direction, but there are some concerns about the lack of funding to tackle some of the issues and to enact some of the good intentions that the Minister has outlined over the past few months. For example, the strategy does not give funding to Housing First so that it can be rolled out nationally. Also, the Local Government Association says that a cross-departmental approach is needed, and needs to be embedded at the heart of all Government Departments, within their constitutions. We ask for that approach to be considered.
Lastly on the housing strategy itself, prevention models are still patchy across the whole of the UK and there needs to be an emphasis on national outcomes, to stop people falling into homelessness. Throughout the UK, charities such as The Bread and Butter Thing are really helping on an emergency scale to relieve the homelessness crisis; we congratulate them on what they are doing.
Iqbal Mohamed
The right-to-buy scheme, the pros and cons of which I will not go into, led to councils losing big chunks of their housing stock to people who bought their houses at a discount. I know that the scheme has been changed and that the discount has been reduced, but I am not aware where the money that is generated goes, even today. Does the shadow Minister agree that the decision of the then Government and subsequent Governments to take the proceeds of sales, instead of leaving them with councils to replenish the stock, was a mistake, and should the Government now be looking at doing the latter for any further sales?
Paul Holmes
The hon. Gentleman asks a perfectly reasonable question. That was a policy decision of Governments before I took this role. I believe in the right-to-buy policy. It was a massive tool to allow people to achieve ownership in a radical way that we need to see again in this country. But in hindsight I accept, given some of the way the system worked, that we needed to see greater investment back into councils so that they could reinvest in stock. I think that is a perfectly reasonable thing to assume, but I will say that under this Government, the social housing fund that has been allocated just is not great enough to ensure that we have the houses that we need to deliver.
The number of people sleeping rough in England is now at its highest level since records began in 2010. Figures from autumn 2025 estimate that 4,793 people were sleeping on the streets on a single night, which was an increase on the previous year. Particularly concerning is the rise in vulnerable groups on the streets. The number of female rough sleepers increased by 8% to 733, alongside 3,938 men and 122 cases in which gender was not recorded. London continues to face the greatest challenge, with 1,277 people sleeping rough—the highest figure in the country—but the sharpest increase was in the north-east of England, where rough sleeping rose by 31% in just one year.
For many families, the pathway to rough sleeping begins long before anyone ends up on the streets. It often starts in temporary accommodation. Between July and September 2025, 134,760 households were living in hotels, B&Bs or temporary flats, which was an increase of nearly 7% compared with the previous year. Of those households, 85,730 include children. These are the highest figures since records began in 2010.
In London, the situation is particularly stark. According to London Councils, one in 50 Londoners is now homeless and record numbers of children are growing up in temporary accommodation. In some boroughs, the pressures are especially severe. Newham has 6,667 households in temporary accommodation, followed by Lambeth with 4,657 and Southwark with 3,828. Statutory homelessness data shows that, across England, 169,050 children are currently homeless in temporary accommodation. That represents a 12% increase in just one year and the ninth consecutive record since December 2022.
Ultimately, the only sustainable solution to homelessness is to increase the supply of homes and, in particular, social and affordable housing. The Government have pledged to build 1.5 million homes during this Parliament. However—I say this again—experts have expressed serious doubts about whether that target can be achieved. Professor Paul Cheshire, a leading planning expert who advised previous Governments, stated that there is “absolutely no way” the current reforms will deliver that number of homes. Let me be clear to Members across the House: that does and should include social homes.
Recent housing statistics raise similar concerns. According to official figures, 208,600 net new dwellings were added in Labour’s first year in office, which is a 6% drop on the previous year, and just 190,600 new homes were built, which is 8,000 fewer than in the final year of the previous Government. If this rate continues, fewer than 1 million homes will be delivered by 2029—well short of the Government’s stated target.
That is a serious issue because housing supply directly affects homelessness. Without sufficient homes, more families are pushed into temporary accommodation and the risk of rough sleeping continues. The scale of the challenge facing families with children demands urgency, co-ordination and long-term solutions. That means tackling child poverty, expanding affordable housing, supporting local authorities and ensuring that strategies are delivered on time and backed by meaningful action. All of us in this House, on both sides, agree that no child should grow up without the stability of a safe home, no family should face the prospect of homelessness and no society should accept rising rough sleeping as inevitable.
I say once again to the Minister that we come here in the spirit of co-operation. I genuinely believe that this Minister wants to achieve her aim of reducing homelessness. She has been going in the right direction to make sure that the Department constitutes what is necessary to deliver that, but we will look to see how this will be carried on across all Departments to achieve what we all want to achieve.
Alison McGovern
I am not quite sure that I caught all the details of the case that the hon. Member raised, but if he sends me them I will happily respond to him. He will know that we do not want children to be in B&B accommodation. That is one of the main planks of our strategy, which I will come to later.
As has been mentioned, I wrote to local authority leaders and chief executives last month to remind them of their duties and to ask that they take personal responsibility for making sure that no child in their area is ever left to sleep on the street, in a car or in any other location not designed for living in. I am conscious of the case raised by the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed). I am sure that he has made every effort to sort that out with Kirklees, but if he has further problems, or Kirklees has specific issues that it wants to raise with me, I trust that he will write to me directly.
We must support councils to meet their obligations, and my Department has been in contact with the councils mentioned in the report to understand how this was able to happen and to ensure that it will not happen again. More broadly, hon. Members will be aware that we recently completed the local authority finance settlement for the next three years, reconnecting council funding with deprivation. That should aid the councils that are more likely to face these issues to deal with them.
The Government are providing more than £2.4 billion this spending review period in support of the Families First Partnership programme, which is introducing reforms to children’s social care. It will ensure children and families can access timely support so that they can get ahead of this problem, as many Members have suggested. Local authorities should use that ringfenced funding to meet their duties under the Children Act. It has been great to speak to many Members and their local authority leaders about how they will do that.
We are providing record levels of investment in homelessness and rough sleeping support, including more than £3.6 billion over the three years from 2026-27 to 2028-29. That is a funding boost of more than £1 billion compared with the previous Government’s commitment, and I pay tribute to the Chancellor for taking that decision. It is right that we are investing that much, because we inherited a homelessness crisis. Members have set out just how bad things have got.
Our long-term vision is to end homelessness and rough sleeping and ensure everyone has access to a safe and decent home. The statistics that we have heard today show that, for far too many people, that is not yet the case. We published our national plan to end homelessness last December to shift the system from crisis response to prevention and to get back on track to ending homelessness.
Our plan is backed by clear national targets to increase the proportion of households who are supported to stay in their own home or helped to find alternative accommodation when they approach their local council for support. That is the prevention goal, and it should underpin everything we do. For reasons that have been mentioned—not least the experience shared by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher)—we must prevent first. Homelessness is too big of a trauma; nobody should experience it.
By the end of this Parliament, we want to eliminate the use of B&B accommodation for families, except in absolute, dire emergencies, and halve rough sleeping. Of course, we want everyone to have a roof over their head, but some of the problems that we are facing and the experiences of rough sleepers go deep, so we have to go to the toughest of problems.
Our plan is backed by £3.6 billion of funding, including £2.2 billion that councils are free to use to design effective, locally tailored services to deliver better outcomes and reduce reliance on emergency interventions. A number of Members asked about ringfencing. There is tension between allowing local innovation, for which ringfences are unhelpful, and putting clear ringfences around funds to ensure that all councils can tackle homelessness. It is a balance, and that is the way we have taken the decision about the funding.
Our plan sets out how we will tackle the root causes of homelessness by building 1.5 million new homes, including more social and affordable housing than has been built for years. We are also lifting 550,000 children out of poverty through the measures in our child poverty strategy, including by lifting the two-child limit.
Public institutions should lead the way in preventing homelessness. Our plan sets a long-term ambition that no one should leave a public institution into homelessness, and we have cross-Government targets to start that change and reduce homelessness from prisons, care and hospitals.
A number of Members, including the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), were kind enough to say that they believed in my will to get this done but expressed scepticism about other Departments. I hope I can reassure them that they do not need to be sceptical. My experience of working with Ministers in other Departments has been positive.
Alison McGovern
I was just going to respond to the shadow Minister. The interministerial group will meet quite soon, and we have been preparing for that. Our expert group of advisers met me yesterday, and we got a great deal of things done and discussed. I will come on to some of those, but I want to reassure Members that we have active participation in the interministerial group and across Government.
Paul Holmes
I knew the Minister would give me a straight answer, but may I push her a bit further on the remit of the interministerial group? Will she confirm her intention for how often it will meet? Is it constituted to meet a certain number of times during the year?
Alison McGovern
The interministerial group will meet regularly.
There are interconnections between homelessness and violence against women and girls, because the third biggest cause of homelessness is people fleeing domestic abuse, so we will do some of what we need to do via our work as Ministers through the violence against women and girls strategy. As a number of Members have highlighted, there is clearly a connection between homelessness and poverty. We are about to take forward the delivery of the child poverty strategy, so some aspects of what we are considering will be taken forward through that discussion among Ministers. I am very conscious that we should have meetings not for the sake of it, but to get things done. We will deliver our objectives through those three interconnected strategies, and Ministers will certainly meet regularly.
Social Cohesion Action Plan
Paul Holmes Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for giving me advance sight of his statement, although the Government leaked it on Friday and his Department briefed it to the press yesterday. Parliament should not learn the details of Government policy through newspaper reports. This House deserves transparency.
There are some measures in this strategy that we welcome. Efforts to tackle extremism in charities and universities are important and necessary, and we welcome them, but the strategy lacks ambition and action to deliver tangible change. The Secretary of State spoke for two minutes over his allocated time, which is ironic because there is absolutely nothing new in the measures that the Government are announcing this evening.
The strategy claims that the Government intend to embed the anti-extremism principles adopted by the previous Conservative Government in 2024, but if that is the case, why have this Government reversed the position on naming extremist organisations? We now have the ridiculous situation where the Government claim they have a policy of non-engagement with extremists but refuse to say who that policy applies to. Last month, we saw this confusion laid bare when the Home Office was asked whether it engaged with the Muslim Council of Britain. Two Ministers gave contradictory answers. When asked whether the MCB had given written evidence to the Macdonald review into hate crime, the Minister for Policing and Crime, the hon. Member for Croydon West (Sarah Jones), stated:
“The Government’s policy of non-engagement with the Muslim Council of Britain has not changed.”
However, just two days later, when asked whether the Muslim Council of Britain was on the list of organisations subject to that policy, the Minister for Security, the hon. Member for Barnsley North (Dan Jarvis), replied:
“The Home Office does not comment on specific groups.”
So which is it?
This lack of transparency also applies to the review itself. Will the Minister now publish the full report provided to him by the working group? Will he publish a list of every external organisation that the working group met, and every organisation his Department has subsequently consulted on that report? Will he confirm whether organisations deemed extremist or subject to the Government’s policy of non-engagement were permitted to submit evidence? So far, this review appears to have been conducted largely in secret. The Government even had to be dragged kicking and screaming into publishing an email address so that evidence could be submitted.
The proposed definition still raises serious questions. Jonathan Hall KC, the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has warned that any definition should include clear examples of free speech that are not considered anti-Muslim hatred. He says it is important that people can still openly discuss difficult but significant topics such as migration and Islamism. The definition risks undermining free speech within the law, it risks hindering legitimate criticism of Islamism and it risks creating a back-door blasphemy law.
The strategy also claims that the Government want to promote the English language, but they will not say whether they support the guidance issued to councils in 2013 by the then Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, which advised against routine translation into foreign languages. We should be investing in English language training, not endless translation. Translation undermines integration, it wastes taxpayers’ money and it ultimately harms equality. There is no legal duty on councils to translate documents into foreign languages, yet too often officials gold-plate the Equality Act 2010 and do so anyway.
Meanwhile, around 1 million adults in this country cannot speak English properly. This fundamentally limits their life chances and perpetuates separate communities. If the Government truly believed in equality, they would not turn a blind eye to practices such as family voting, where husbands effectively take the votes off their wives. Neither would they tolerate the misogyny and segregation that occur when men prevent women from learning English—[Interruption.] Labour Members might want to listen to this, because I am about to talk about antisemitism and I know that they have had a problem with that.
On the question of antisemitism, will the Government challenge anti-Israel boycotts and divestment campaigns in local government, as we have seen recently in Bristol, advocated by a party in this House? Such campaigns fuel hostility towards Jewish people and contribute to the rise in antisemitism. Local procurement boycotts of Israel are supposed to be unlawful, yet Ministers do nothing to enforce the law. They will not even compile a list of the councils pursuing such boycotts.
Added to these fears, separatism is on the rise in our country, as the Leader of the Opposition rightly set out in her speech last week. She said that
“for too long, Britain has been complacent about our culture and too tolerant of those weaponising identity politics for their own gain…Britain is a multiracial country, we must not be a multicultural one.”
[Interruption.] That was in the Secretary of State’s statement, by the way. We must reject the absurd idea that culture is something imported from somewhere else. For integration to work, people must know into what they are integrating. That means a culture that is confident, that is strong and that believes in itself. That is what this Government still seem unable to understand and unwilling to defend.
Steve Reed
I thank the hon. Gentleman—I think—for his comments. The reason this is the first social cohesion strategy that any Government have published for many years is that the Conservatives did not bother when they were in government. No, there has not been proactive engagement with the MCB in the work carried out by the Government or the taskforce. The previous Government did not publish a social cohesion strategy, but they did sow division in our communities. Their asylum seeker hotel policy, which we are having to clean up, caused all sorts of problems all over the country. They actively stripped money out of poorer communities and then boasted about it, leaving high streets to fall into decline and the people living in those communities feeling that the country was going backwards and was offering them nothing.
On the definition, there is absolutely no question of blasphemy laws by the back door. We will not do what the Conservatives did and stand by and simply watch while Muslim communities face targeted abuse in ways that any decent country would consider to be absolutely intolerable. As for English language teaching, they cut funding for it by 60%, and then have the cheek to stand there and say there is not enough of it going on. When I was a student, I volunteered to teach English to refugees. I suggest the hon. Gentleman does the same thing, because it is enriching for the volunteer and beneficial for the person learning English. Speaking the same language is fundamental to social cohesion.
Grenfell Tower Annual Report
Paul Holmes Excerpts(3 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement and join him in welcoming survivors from Grenfell who are with us today.
The events that took place on 14 June 2017 were an avoidable national tragedy that should not have robbed 72 people of their lives, and they must never be repeated. It is right that in consultation with the survivors, the bereaved and those directly impacted, a fitting and lasting memorial is put in place to remember the 72 lives lost that day and the wider Grenfell community. We welcome the new legislation that the Secretary of State has announced this afternoon.
It is right that we remember the victims, and I thank the Secretary of State for giving us the opportunity to do that while he updates the House. The victims must be at the heart of how we remember Grenfell, and the Government must work with them in as sensitive a manner as humanly possible. We will support and scrutinise how the Government proceed with the memorial to ensure that the victims are at the heart of what he has decided. We believe that this matter should be cross-party, as it goes beyond party politics and it is simply the right thing to do.
The inquiry’s findings—decades of systematic failure, dishonesty and negligence—are a damning indictment of successive Governments, regulators and industry. The Government’s response last year was to accept all 58 recommendations, which is a step forward, and we welcome the commitment to action. I am glad to hear today that action on a few of those recommendations has already taken place.
The creation of a single construction regulator, the appointment of a chief construction adviser and the consolidation of fire safety functions under one Department are long-overdue reforms. While we welcome the formation of a single construction regulator, can the Secretary of State confidently state that he believes it will be more effective and help to safely build the homes that we need? Can he confirm that we will not be left with the potential delays that we have seen under the Building Safety Regulator?
When we were in government, we took decisive action to initiate this public inquiry immediately after the tragedy to learn the lessons and prevent it from ever happening again. We strengthened the regulatory regime and implemented the inquiry’s recommendations following the report from the first phase. It was welcome that this Government also accepted the recommendations. Will the Secretary of State publish a detailed plan on how all the recommendations are being implemented and their status? He gave us the update that 91% of high-rise residential and public buildings have had cladding removed. Will he update us with a road map for when the rest will be completed?
All building owners must step up, do the right thing and fix their buildings without delay, or face the consequences of their inaction. Those who intentionally cut corners on building safety must be held to account. The Metropolitan police and the Crown Prosecution Service should continue to pursue criminal charges against the small number of developers and contractors who knowingly and fraudulently cut corners on building safety for greed and financial gain.
The Secretary of State has promised to complete all the remaining recommendations during this Parliament. Will he lay out key dates for when key parts of that will be achieved? Will he update us on what stage he is at with the Grenfell site itself and future plans for it? How is he working with the victims’ families to support them?
Those who profited from cutting corners or were criminally negligent must face consequences—not just fines, but criminal charges where the evidence allows. We will support and scrutinise the support for victims and their families that the Government are putting forward to ensure that we get this right. I know that the Secretary of State and the Building Safety Minister, the hon. Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), want to get this right.
Grenfell must be a watershed with a legacy of safety, transparency and respect for every resident. Let me make clear the commitment of the Conservatives to work with the Secretary of State and the Government on a cross-party basis to meet that promise.
Steve Reed
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and welcome the tone that he has adopted. It is quite right that we should all work cross-party on this matter to speed up the outcomes that we are all looking for and that we work together in a way that shows respect to the families and those who lost their lives in this tragedy.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the single construction regulator. The BSR became a stand-alone body, separate from the Health and Safety Executive, on 26 January. Work is progressing on bringing into the BSR all the other aspects that will allow it to function in due course as the single construction regulator, which the inquiry identified as such an important part of fixing the building safety system. Lord Roe is overseeing rapid improvement in the performance of the BSR even as I speak.
The hon. Gentleman asked about remediation. It is welcome that 91% of high-rise residential or public buildings with unsafe ACM cladding have been remediated, but we recognise that there is further to go. Further acceleration plans are available, and I am happy to write to him if he would like access to that information.
Similarly, the hon. Gentleman asked about key dates in implementing further recommendations. We will continue to publish quarterly reports so that the whole House can scrutinise the progress that the Government are making with these recommendations. The Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), and I are meeting regularly with the families and affected groups to ensure that we hear their concerns directly and can feed them straight into the system.
Holocaust Memorial Day
Paul Holmes Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
It is a genuine pleasure to speak as a shadow Housing, Communities and Local Government Minister in a debate where Members across the House have been frank, honest, open and emotional. Debates such as this, about our history and our future, often bring out the best in Members, and I pay tribute to all the speeches this afternoon.
I particularly pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley), who opened the debate. I do not think that I am alone in saying that he is one of the most gentlemanly and honourable Members of the House in conducting his business. He gave us some beautiful words that we all must learn from, as well as a wonderful history tour. His speech brought our history closer to home, and showed what this country was intrinsically involved in. His honesty in that is admirable.
Notwithstanding the serious nature of this debate, I think that the hon. Gentleman should consider audiobooks, because his dulcet tones should be heard far and wide across the country. They are incredibly soothing. He did a tremendous job today, and I pay tribute to him.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) reminded us that the Holocaust was not the start or end of antisemitism. His speech was a stark reminder not just of the need to remember, but to acknowledge what is happening now in this country and the world.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) spoke in graphic detail, and he was right to do so. Having been to Auschwitz and to the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem only last month, I know that we must not become desensitised to our history. His graphic speech reminded us of the horrors of the past. He outlined some local issues to do with councillors at Leeds council, and he had every right to do so on the Floor of the House. It is a shame that the leadership of any political party did not feel the need to vet people properly or act on an incredibly serious incident. I remind the House and my right hon. Friend that Hamas is a proscribed organisation, and I hope that the police will take action following his speech to bring that person to justice. He is absolutely right that we need to call out antisemitism and challenge those who look the other way not just by making points of order, but by making substantive contributions in this Chamber, as he did this afternoon.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) said that we must arm young people with knowledge about genocide, despite the dehumanisation and nationalism we have seen in the parts of the world that he mentioned. He is absolutely right. That is just a short peppering of the excellent contributions we have had from across the House today.
Holocaust Memorial Day invites us to pause, reflect and recommit ourselves to ensuring that the darkest chapter in human history is never forgotten. This year’s theme, “Bridging Generations”, is a powerful reminder that the responsibility for remembrance does not end with the survivors. It lives on through their children and their grandchildren, and through every single one of us. As a nation, we must never allow the history of the Holocaust to fade from our collective consciousness. As the events of the 1930s and 1940s move further from living memory, our duty becomes even more urgent. We must ensure that future generations know and understand the horrors, traumas and lessons of the Shoah, for remembrance is not a passive act; it is a conscious commitment to education, and to the memory of those killed in barbarous cruelty.
Holocaust Memorial Day plays a vital role in sustaining that commitment. On this day, we commemorate the genocide of 6 million Jews—men, women and children—murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. We also remember the millions of others persecuted and killed: Roma and Sinti people, the disabled, gay men, political opponents, and countless others targeted by a regime built on hatred and dehumanisation. The focus on bridging generations reminds us of our collective role in ensuring that the Holocaust remains a lesson for all those in positions of influence and responsibility. We in this place have a special obligation to ensure that the stories of those who came before us continue to be told accurately, compassionately and courageously to future generations. As we reflect, we must also remember that the Holocaust was not the final genocide of the 20th century. The world has witnessed unspeakable brutality again and again. We all, in this House, send our thoughts to those affected by antisemitic terror, particularly those in Australia, whom many Members across the House mentioned.
The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust reminds us that commemorating these tragedies is not only a moral duty, but a hope that through memory we can build the vigilance needed to prevent these horrors recurring, yet remembrance alone is not enough. We must also confront the reality of antisemitism today. Any discrimination or intimidation based on religion or race is deplorable and must never be tolerated. In 2016, the United Kingdom became the first country in Europe to formally adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism—an important step, but one that we must build on with action against a rising tide of antisemitism.
I am afraid to say that data from the Community Security Trust shows deeply troubling trends. In the first half of 2025 alone, 1,521 antisemitic incidents were recorded across the UK—the second highest total ever reported over such a period. The surge in antisemitism that followed the horrific terrorist attacks of 7 October 2023, before there had been any major military response in Gaza, is a stark reminder that antisemitism remains a persistent, poisonous force. In that context, initiatives to strengthen Holocaust education and public memory are more important than ever. That is why the Holocaust Memorial Act 2026, which received Royal Assent just last week, marks a historic and meaningful milestone. It will finally bring to life the vision first announced in 2015 by Lord Cameron of a national holocaust memorial and learning centre beside Parliament, in Victoria Tower Gardens. It will serve as a lasting tribute to the 6 million Jewish victims, and to all victims of Nazi persecution. It will stand as an enduring educational resource, and a totemic reminder of the consequences of unchecked hatred and the vital importance of resisting it.
At the very moment when education is most urgently needed, we face a worrying decline. As the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket mentioned, in 2023, more than 2,000 secondary schools across the UK took part in Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations, and the number had grown each year since 2019; but in the wake of the 7 October attacks, participation fell to under 1,200 in 2024, and to just 854 in 2025—a drop of nearly 60%. This is alarming, to say the least. Holocaust education should never be seen as political, nor should it be treated as contingent on world events. The Chief Rabbi expressed this with clarity and moral force when he said:
“Holocaust Memorial Day is not a platform for political debate. It is not an endorsement of any Government, perspective or conflict. It is an act of human memory. To insist that it must justify itself by reference to today’s headlines is to fundamentally misunderstand it.”
The Chief Rabbi also reminded us of another essential point:
“The Shoah was not inevitable. It was the end of a road paved with normalised scapegoating, constant disinformation, violent autocracy and a culture of the most extreme hatred. It began not in concentration camps but in classrooms, newspapers and public squares where people learned to look away.”
Holocaust education, then, is not a parochial concern, and it is right that by law children are taught about the Holocaust in the key stage 3 history curriculum. I welcome the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the Holocaust remain a compulsory topic in the reformed national curriculum, which will be required teaching in academy schools, when it is implemented. It is only through education that we can honour those who were killed. To reference the Chief Rabbi once more,
“Honouring Jewish victims of genocide does not diminish compassion for any other people. On the contrary, it enlarges it, because collective memory is not a finite resource.”
Today, as we work to bridge generations, and connect the testimonies of survivors to the responsibilities of our children and grandchildren, let us ensure that the horrors of the Holocaust are never forgotten, and most importantly, never repeated. Let us, across all generations, all parties and both sides of this Chamber, stand together in remembrance, but also united in hope.
Waste Collection: Birmingham and the West Midlands
Paul Holmes Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for securing this important debate. She is an absolute champion for her local area, and I know how hard she has worked to secure this debate on Government support for waste collections in Birmingham and the west midlands—a debate that could have been completely avoided, had the Government done due diligence on ensuring that local authorities deliver for local communities.
A person is in a topsy-turvy world when they find themselves in utter agreement with the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), but that is the situation I find myself in this afternoon. In response to the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), I say that despite his passionate speech, he does not have a monopoly on representing working-class people. I happen to represent lots of working-class people and am working class myself. It was because I am working class that I joined the Conservative party. The hon. Member talks about the electoral oblivion of the Labour party. I suggest that it is socialist speeches of the 1980s that will destine the Labour party to electoral oblivion, not the current policies that they are putting out today.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills is absolutely right to bring forward this issue today. Quite frankly, it is a national embarrassment that one of our nation’s greatest cities—indeed, the second largest in the country—is facing a situation like this. As my hon. Friend said, the “squeaky blinders” are running freely down the streets and into piles of rubbish found outside hard-working people’s homes. I certainly would not want to see rats in my street, and I am sure that all Members taking part in this debate can absolutely agree with that. What is just as embarrassing is that, on a local and national level, the Government and Labour-run Birmingham city council have failed to address the situation soon enough.
As has already been mentioned here today, the waste management dispute began in March 2025, with some residents having had no collections since Christmas 2024. At the risk of stating the obvious, it is now January 2026 and the Government have stood idly by. This Government shamefully still fail to recognise the importance of this issue. On 13 January they referred to the waste dispute as a “local issue” and left it to their failing colleagues at Birmingham city council. The industrial action taking place in Birmingham has left residents without their rubbish collected for well over a year. That is simply not good enough; it is chaotic and shambolic.
The issue is much more than bins not being collected; as colleagues have highlighted, there are serious implications for public health. As the hon. Member for Leeds East and my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said, there are commissioners in Birmingham city council, and the Government put those commissioners into the local authority. The Government have legislative cover to commission and start talks for negotiations to end the strike. So far, the political leadership of this Government have determined not to do that. That is a stain on the character of this Government, and it has caused a reduction in services for the people of the great city of Birmingham.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills outlined, the fiscal ineptitude of Birmingham city council is deeply concerning. It has allowed taxes to soar and effectively bankrupted itself through extra spending and the using up of its reserves. In other words, it has deeply let down residents in Birmingham and the west midlands. There is a clear need for Government intervention. Instead, Birmingham is set to receive one of the most generous payouts from the Government’s unfair funding review—a review designed to benefit poorly run, Labour-run urban councils. That narrative explains itself.
Wendy Morton
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is something fundamentally wrong when a council like Birmingham city council has been almost rewarded in its funding settlement for failure?
Paul Holmes
My right hon. Friend has made that point expertly. That is also on the back of a 7.5% increase in council tax after a previous 10% increase.
Finally, after that intervention, I would like to piggyback on my right hon. Friend and thank local Conservative councils, particularly Walsall, and recognise the work of Keep Britian Tidy and the individual volunteers who my right hon. Friend mentioned, who go to their communities to clear rubbish. It is great to hear that there are still individuals who take pride in what their local area looks like and who want to protect nature and work together towards a greener future. I am delighted that Aldridge-Brownhills will have a new household waste recycling centre and a waste transfer station opening next month, and that it will actively help reduce landfill waste and increase recycling.
To conclude, I am in complete agreement with my right hon. Friend and, it turns out this afternoon, also Members from across the House, who say that waste collections are a fundamental service. That is fact. It is paramount that the Government take decisive action to resolve the ongoing waste management saga in Birmingham and the west midlands. That has been clearly called for from all quarters—the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats and independent Members, and us as the official Opposition. They all want to see leadership from the Government to control the people that they put in to control that local authority, to bring them to the table. I encourage the Minister to do that, because this problem has simply gone on for too long.
Alison McGovern
Very briefly, although I am conscious of your strictures, Ms McVey.
Paul Holmes
Will the Minister answer this question for me? Since she or even her predecessor took office, what specific advice has she sought from officials to see whether she has the cover—as a Minister of the Crown, through legislation—to get those people in a room? Does she or do the Government have that power?
Alison McGovern
I have received advice from the commissioners and others on the situation in Birmingham. I will happily set that out for the shadow Minister. He will know that the commissioners have the responsibility to produce reports and so on. The relationship between commissioners and the Government is well understood, but I will happily write to him with the detail.
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Holmes Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
With a new year often come new year’s resolutions. Will the Secretary of State make a new year’s resolution to accept the truth that the Government will not meet their 1.5 million housing target, which he set out? Will he confirm that he still thinks his job is on the line if he does not achieve that? Huge focus has been placed on rural areas with no infrastructure, but cities—often Labour cities—have been left off the hook, so will he commit to changing the formula to make it fairer and, more importantly, more deliverable?
Steve Reed
If the hon. Gentleman’s party had not scrapped house building targets around the country, we might see more of the kinds of homes that we need in every single part of the country—urban, suburban and rural. As for our targets, the judgment of the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, which was set up by the previous Conservative Government, is that this Government will oversee the biggest increase in house building for 40 years. That will put the key to their own home into the hands of people who were denied it under the Conservatives.
Local Government Reorganisation
Paul Holmes Excerpts(3 months ago)
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Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. The question many will be asking out there today is: what does this Labour Government have against democracy? Only two days ago, when asked, the Secretary of State said that all local elections were going ahead. He either hid his decision until today or has changed his mind in the past 48 hours. Which was it?
Voters will now potentially be denied the right to elect their own representatives, and not for the first time under this Labour Government. This is the second year in a row that Ministers have scrambled to postpone elections. Now, while many people gather around their screens to watch movies like “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, we are sitting here discussing how Labour is trying to steal the elections.
There is no mandate for the Government’s botched reorganisation plan, and they have behaved as the sole actor, forcing local council leaders to reorganise, with little regard for local people and their democratic rights. Has the Electoral Commission been consulted on these latest changes, or has it been ignored once again? Just as the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission noted when mayoral elections were previously cancelled, the commission exists to protect the integrity of our electoral system, but time and again the Government seem content to brush aside its advice when it becomes inconvenient.
Do the Government still believe in the Gould principle—the long-standing agreement that election rules and practices should not be changed within the six-month period of a scheduled election—or is that expendable whenever Labour finds itself politically vulnerable? The Opposition accept that there is a precedent for a single-year delay, but that is not what we face. Do the Government accept the clear advice of the Electoral Commission that further delays are unacceptable? It said that scheduled polls should be postponed only in exceptional circumstances —what are the exceptional circumstances in this case? We know the answer: Labour’s rushed, chaotic and flawed local government reorganisation plan. It is the Government’s fault, not local leaders’ fault.
Have the Government undertaken or commissioned any up-to-date research into the costs of restructuring? Again, we know the answer, and it is a resounding no. What assessment has been made of the paralysis that the restructuring risks causing in local plan preparations? At a time when the Government claim they want to speed up planning, how does freezing governance structures help? Will this disruption not make the Government’s beleaguered 1.5 million homes target even harder to achieve? What about social care? What assessment has been made of the impacts of breaking up counties on adult and children’s social care provision? The broader narrative is clear. Yes, some councils have expressed an interest in restructuring, but Labour’s process has been rushed and deeply flawed, local residents have not been properly consulted and this Labour Government have put a gun to the heads of local council leaders.
The Opposition support council leaders who have engaged with the process, such as Kevin Bentley, the leader of Essex county council, who has stated clearly in the public domain that he will not ask for elections to be delayed in Greater Essex. I am pleased to say that my authority, Hampshire county council, does not support the move, either.
In December 2024, the Conservatives set out several clear tests; Labour has failed every single one of them. Is this a genuine choice for councils and communities, or are councils being compelled and punished if they do not comply? Will they be more accountable as a result? Will this reorganisation keep council tax down and improve services or simply add new layers of cost? Will it avoid disruption to social care at a time of immense strain? On all counts, the answer is no.
Earlier this month, Labour cancelled mayoral elections because it was worried it would not win them. Now it is doing the same with local elections, pausing the democratic process to serve its own political interests, creating for itself a true nightmare before Christmas. The process has been a mess from start to finish. It is not wanted, not in Labour’s manifesto and centrally dictated. It should be scrapped today.
Alison McGovern
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his response. I will do my best to respond to a couple of his substantive points. He said that the Opposition are supporting local leaders who are engaging in the process in good faith, and I thank him for that, despite his other comments where he indicated that perhaps his party is not supporting the move to towards unitary councils, which we know are more efficient and effective, as I said.
On the hon. Gentleman’s important point about the Electoral Commission, the Secretary of State will take that under advisement, and will take any issues raised seriously. As I mentioned, we want to take an approach that puts local insights first. He mentioned councils that do not support a delay. As I said, that is fine; there is no problem with that at all. We want to support local leaders through what we are doing.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned planning, which is extremely important, given the desperate need to build more homes; in fact, part of the motivation for moving to unitary authorities is to get that work done effectively and efficiently. He also asked about social care, which is an extremely important area. A lot of change is going on in social care, not least through the work in the Department for Health and Social Care on changing how NHS England works. I am working closely with colleagues in that Department on that, and I am happy to engage further with him on it.
The position on elections is as it has always been. The starting point remains that elections go ahead unless there is a strong justification for them not going ahead. Today, we are writing to local leaders who have raised concerns and made justifications to us, to ask them to set those out, so that an informed decision can be taken.
Housing Development: Cumulative Impacts
Paul Holmes Excerpts(3 months ago)
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Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on raising this important issue for debate today. He and I—as well as our hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) —represent stunning Hampshire constituencies, with renowned countryside walking routes and picturesque towns and villages. I still reckon I have the better deal, as my constituents have the “Costa del Hamble”, but I know that my right hon. Friend would definitely say the same about his patch.
May I briefly respond to something that the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), said? I do not know whether he planned it as an early Christmas present for me, but the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) walked in while he was speaking. That was a good thing to see.
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire has instilled in me a sense of déjà vu, which demonstrates the length of time that he has been campaigning on these issues for his constituency. We had a Westminster Hall debate before, and he is right that he cross-examined the Minister, who gave a very pithy response yesterday in the NPPF statement. I know that my right hon. Friend works very hard for his constituents, to make sure that he can get them the acquiescence that they seek from the Government.
I congratulate East Hampshire council on developing a local plan and, now, taking the responsible step of renewing it. That shows the kind of leadership that is needed. However, my right hon. Friend raised a number of important points, and I hope that the Minister will answer them. First, he asked about affordability, and about the rise in speculative development because of the lack of five-year housing supply, but the new targets have completely ripped up and undermined the plan-led approach to spatial planning, which the Government are rightly seeking and which I would argue forms the backbone of the planning system.
My hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon said that planning is a huge issue in his postbag. I, too, have that issue, and I suspect that Members from across the House who made brilliant speeches this afternoon also have that issue in their constituencies. It is love of our communities and respect for their unique characters that brought us all here to the Chamber today.
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire and I know that our constituents are not against building more homes in principle—there is a clear need to build many more houses up and down the country; that is a simple fact—but people are asking for the right houses to be built in the right places, and for community resources and infrastructure to be invested in to sustain a growing population, a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon made in his contribution. That is why it is so important that we properly assess the impacts of housing development. When multiple housing developments are lumped together, they overwhelm communities, stretch scarce resources and dilute the character of our towns. Over time, people begin to lose their vital sense of belonging and communities lose their identity.
The house building sector makes a substantial contribution to the economy. In 2023, new house building generated £53.3 billion in economic output across Great Britain, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs in house building firms and their contractors, as well as the wider supply chain. But economic benefit depends on stability, confidence and deliverability, and an approach that relies on unrealistic targets, rising costs and declining affordability risks undermining the very industry the Government claim to champion.
The impacts of housing developments manifest in numerous key areas. One huge concern, which I receive countless emails about from my constituents—no doubt all Members present can say the same—is the environmental impact of housing developments. The Government had the chance to address such concerns through Lords amendments 38 and 40 to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which my Conservative colleagues in the other Chamber supported. However, the Government chose to ignore them, leaving unanswered questions about the environmental harm of their planning process.
We know and agree that ripping up the green belt is not the answer. Once the green belt is lost, it is lost forever, and that is why my Conservative colleagues and I have called for the swift redevelopment of brownfield sites, something that—to give the Minister credit—he did address yesterday in the NPPF update. The Campaign to Protect Rural England’s “State of Brownfield” report showed that we have more brownfield land now than in previous years. It highlighted that in a substantial number of local authorities, there is enough brownfield land with planning permission to meet the housing targets set by the Government’s standard method for calculating housing need for at least the next five years.
The Government’s plan for new homes disproportionately places the responsibility on rural communities to reach their target, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire outlined. The 2024 reforms to the national planning policy framework, introducing mandatory housing targets and a new standard method for calculating local housing need, redistributed top-down housing targets to rural areas from urban areas by Government diktat. As my right hon. Friend outlined, East Hampshire council’s targets doubled, while London’s housing allocations were cut by 11%, Birmingham’s by 38% and Coventry’s by 55%. In Eastleigh in my constituency, which has already built more than is required, the allocation is up by 42%, and in Fareham in the other half of my constituency, it is up by 62%.
That is particularly concerning given that, as my right hon. Friend outlined, many younger people whom we want to achieve and get on the housing ladder want to live in metropolitan urban centres. I am pleased that the Government listened to the calls of the Conservative Opposition on the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill Committee. We called for an incentive for densification in urban centres; it was rejected by the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh), but now the Government have come forward with one, which we welcome.
The point that my right hon. Friend made is that Government regulations and Government legislation are competing against each other. I hope that the Minister will answer my right hon. Friend’s challenge. The new NPPF will designate and allow urban densification, but housing targets in rural areas have massively increased, acting as a competing objective. Which is more important—the NPPF or the housing targets? If housing in towns, in which it is much easier to regenerate and to increase housing numbers, is to be increased, housing targets cannot be uplifted greatly in rural areas but reduced in urban centres.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
In my constituency we have had a 113% increase in our housing targets. A seven-year land supply has now dropped to little over three and a half years, making us susceptible to the very speculative developments that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Does he share my concern that in the circumstances in which speculative developments come forward, we lose the opportunity to plan strategically the infrastructure upgrades that a community needs, and each development brings only a small, incremental increase?
Paul Holmes
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon made that point, I was about to make it, and the hon. Gentleman’s Liberal Democrat colleagues also made it, so there is universal acclaim for his claim, but it is also absolutely correct. I hope the Minister addresses that.
As the amount of housing increases, community infrastructure and resources must be expanded accordingly. That means more schools, GP surgeries, train and bus stations, hospitals, paved roads, bin collections and street lighting, to name just a few of the essentials. The list goes on and on; those are just some of the things we need to consider when looking at where to build. We must get better at prioritising those vital services, while recognising that not every development is right for the area it is proposed for.
We all know that under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as amended, local authorities can secure investment to fund new services and infrastructure in the local area, but the system is struggling to keep up with demand. Over a third of all section 106 agreements took longer than 12 months to finalise. Some 76% of local authorities reported an average timeline exceeding a year, and in over a third of councils it was over 500 days. In 2024-25, 45% of local planning authorities had agreements finalised that had taken over 1,000 days to complete. Dose the Minister agree that in order to unlock some of the housing that is needed, we need a simplified and standardised method for section 106 notices across the country? [Interruption.] He says yes from a sedentary position. I look forward to his affirming that in his comments shortly, but we would support that.
John Milne
I very much agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying about the lack of infrastructure provision and with his previous comments on the failure to prioritise brownfield, but does he recognise that all those errors were inherent in the previous system under the Conservative Government? The problem is that they have not been corrected. They were always there, and that is why MPs across the country have been complaining.
Paul Holmes
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman slightly. I remember that in the last Parliament, under the Conservative Government, there absolutely was a commitment from Planning Ministers and Secretaries of State to prioritise brownfield development. That was announced during our time in government by the former Prime Minister but three, and by a number of Ministers in the MHCLG.
Paul Holmes
Well, I believe the hon. Gentleman will have watched the news. I would be the first to acknowledge that we had quite a few in the last Parliament, but there absolutely was prioritisation of brownfield sites first. We prioritised building houses where they were needed, not where they were not.
What steps do the Government plan to take to protect rural communities feeling the adverse effects of increased housing development? If the Government are serious about building homes and maintaining public confidence in the planning system, they must take cumulative impacts seriously, plan infrastructure properly and ensure that developments work with communities, not against them—something that the Liberal Democrats and my party have been very clear will be removed by the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the English devolution Bill.
I have been very clear about my concerns regarding the Government’s housing targets and the credibility of the 1.5 million homes ambition, which is now being questioned by a number of experts. If the Government are serious about supporting the house building sector and securing its economic benefits, they must ensure that housing delivery is realistic, properly planned and supported by the necessary infrastructure. Crucially, this requires a far greater focus on the cumulative impact of development so that growth is sustainable, communities are supported, and the long-term economic and social benefits of house building are not undermined.
Finally, Mr Twigg, I wish you, the Clerks and staff, the Minister, and even the Liberal Democrats a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.