Voter ID Pilots

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I have already said that the Government are absolutely committed to wanting to have as many people as possible registered to vote. I have focused on that relentlessly through the two occasions on which I have held this ministerial post with responsibility for electoral regulation. We need to be able to work with a range of people to do that, and we need to use a range of tools. Yes, we are using pilots to look at ways to secure people’s votes, but that goes alongside a very large other body of work to ensure that our democracy thrives and is fit for the 21st century. I would welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support in that.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

My constituency had the lowest turnout of any UK constituency at the last general election, so for me this is a question of priorities. The Government should be spending much more time and effort on driving up participation in elections, particularly in constituencies such as mine that have a higher than average level of deprivation, rather than spending so much money, resource, time and effort on a relatively trifling issue. We need to focus on the main issue of what the Government will do about driving up voter participation, instead of fannying around with this issue.

[Chloe Smith]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman’s words might have spoken for themselves. I simply do not agree, nor do I think his constituents or mine would agree, that electoral fraud is “trifling”, or that we should not be, to use his words, “fannying around” trying to put a crime right. I am sorry; I think he let himself down with his choice of language. The point underneath it is equally poor. We ought to be able to focus on tackling crime. Voters would expect us to do that. Electoral fraud is a crime, and we are focusing on tackling it. That is to the good of our democracy.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was touching on an argument about costs and the choice of expenditure in an electoral system. We would be foolish to try to put a price on democracy. We would be foolish to try to isolate the cost of one measure to protect our overall system compared to any other. I say to him, as I have said to other hon. Members, that all these things together give us a thriving democracy. I have happily committed through the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee to ensuring that the costs are available for scrutiny as soon as possible, which is reassuring to all our constituents.