Voter Identification Scheme

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, but I remind all Members in this Chamber that we have already passed the Elections Act 2022; it passed the scrutiny of both Houses and is now law. If she refers to the debates in Hansard, she has treated us to a compilation of the Liberal Democrats’ greatest hits—and that is no surprise because, as always, they do one thing and say another. If she is so opposed to the principle of electoral identification and photographic identification, why did her party support its introduction in Northern Ireland? At that time, the Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesperson told Parliament that

“we accept the need for a Bill… The Liberal Democrats…welcome the Government’s intention to introduce an electoral identity card”—[Official Report, 10 July 2001; Vol. 371, c. 705-707.]

That legislation passed Second Reading without a vote. If we separate the points of substance and process from re-running the battles of the past, of course we take the recommendations of the independent Electoral Commission extremely seriously, as we set out in detail in the report and as I set out in my remarks earlier.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

The Minister has rightly distinguished the political from the practical. The Electoral Commission itself recommended photographic ID, and it has now come forward with other comments.

We must recognise that the biggest deficit is the inadequacies in the completeness of the electoral roll, and the fact that one third of people do not vote in general elections and up to two thirds do not vote in local elections. We ought to spend as much time on that issue as we do on this.

We ought to consider the suggestion of attestation, where someone in a household who does not have voter ID can have their identity attested by a person in the same household who does. Perhaps neighbours ought to be able to do that, and other people with some kind of standing in society might be able to do the same thing for people who find they cannot vote on the day. It seems to me that we can improve what we have without throwing out the whole system of photographic ID, which, as the Minister has said, was supported by all parties when it was first brought in for Northern Ireland.

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend the Father of the House for those very sensible and proportionate comments. He is right that, as political parties, we all have a responsibility to ensure that our constituents and those voters take part in our democratic process. That is what this process is about. I am afraid that the kind of scaremongering comments that we have just heard from the Liberal Democrats, and that no doubt we will hear from all the other Opposition parties, are damaging the important cause that we all stand behind: ensuring the safety of our precious democracy, which now more than at any other time could potentially be at risk. I am proud to be part of a Government who are taking sensible steps to protect our democracy from the kind of interference that we all fear could happen in this day and age.