Representation of the People Bill

Peter Swallow Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Wyre) (Lab)]

Those of us who are in this Chamber on a Thursday morning know that we sometimes have questions to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission then, and I say that because in the last Parliament, as an Opposition MP, I was a spokesperson for that Committee. It is the only time in the parliamentary week when Members pose questions to an opposition Member to answer. That is an important point, because it highlights the fact that the Electoral Commission is not answerable to Government, of any colour; rather, it is answerable to Parliament, because it is a regulator like no other. It regulates politics, and it therefore holds a very special status.

I also served in the last Parliament on the Elections Bill Committee, and I saw there what happens when political parties use legislation for political advantage. I am really pleased to be able to say that the Bill before us contains many of the important democratic principles that I have been speaking about for the last 11 years in this House, and I am excited to vote for it on Second Reading this evening.

Among the Bill’s measures is the expansion of voting rights to 16 and 17-year-olds. We have heard some quite bizarre things said about that so far this evening, some of which were really quite remarkable. The Bill also includes bank cards among the forms of ID that can be used to access voting. For those who were not in the last Parliament to see the Elections Bill go through and become the Elections Act 2022, let me say that time and again, Conservative Ministers told us at the Dispatch Box that if people need ID to collect a parcel at the post office, they should need ID to vote at a polling station; but if we want to collect a parcel at a post office, we can use a bank card for that, so this is completely in line with the arguments made for the introduction of ID, and I would expect the official Opposition to support expanding the relevant ID to include bank cards.

It is important that we come together on upholding confidence in democracy, because confidence in democracy is not very high in this country right now. That is why it is so important that expanding the franchise to include 16 and 17-year-olds goes hand in hand with working with our colleagues in education to ensure that those young citizens are equipped to vote, and have the necessary support. Already, young citizens in Wales and Scotland have the right to vote, and bringing English and Northern Irish citizens into line makes logical sense.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

I declare an interest: I am chair of the all-party group on schools, learning and assessment, and we are conducting an inquiry on votes at 16 to see what support young people will need to make the most of the vote, when they get it. The most important thing that young people are telling us is that they are concerned that their teachers do not feel confident enough to lead discussions in the classroom around politics. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must support not just our young people, but our teachers, and enable conversations about democracy, the voting process and citizenship?

[Cat Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. His APPG sounds very interesting. I am sure that those on the Front Bench heard those points, and I agree with them.

In my remaining time, I want to address the need to protect our democracy from foreign interference. In cleaning up politics, we need to address specific weaknesses identified. There is a very good blog by Professor Alan Renwick at the University College London constitution unit, which I would love to quote from, but my time is quite limited. He highlights that while the Bill introduces stricter eligibility criteria for company donors, there are still huge gaps regarding cryptocurrency and the potential for illicit funds to bypass traditional checks. We should be bold enough to start talking about a donation cap, too. There is no plausible argument against introducing caps on political donations to prevent a small number of wealthy people from exerting disproportionate influence.

The changes made in the last piece of legislation that went through this House on electoral law have left a huge vulnerability. That legislation abolished the 15-year rule we used to have, whereby citizens who had lived outside the UK for 15 years or longer lost the right to vote and to donate to UK politics. When that rule was abolished, there was no way for elections officers in councils up and down the country to verify that people claiming to have lived at an address in another constituency in 1976 actually did so, because those records were not kept past 15 years, as of course there was no point. Now, there are permissible donors to the UK electoral system who claim to have lived in the UK, and we have no way of proving whether they did. That is a huge vulnerability, and I urge those on the Front Bench to look again at that, and at closing that potential back door that we have left open to foreign money interfering in UK politics. We are an outlier in having this rule; in the Republic of Ireland, for instance, those who leave the country lose the right to vote after one year.

I would like to finish by saying that many colleagues have made the case for proportional representation, and this Bill would have been a great opportunity to set up a commission to look at all the different options that would be available to make sure that people feel that their vote counts, and that there is no such thing as a wasted vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Bromborough) (Lab)]

While new technologies can often be a force for good and, when used correctly, can enhance political debate, accountability and trust, in practice they are too often having the opposite effect. Social media, in particular, has helped to fuel further division and facilitated levels of distrust, threats and intimidation towards elected representatives that have never been seen before. It has also opened our political system and discourse to the wider world, with other countries able to use platforms to influence and interfere in our domestic political debate in ways that were previously not possible.

Political discourse has become murky, and legitimate political debate has become distorted by misinformation, with people no longer even able to agree on basic facts. This represents an existential threat to liberal democracy. When misinformation spreads unchecked, abuse is normalised and accountability is lacking, confidence in our democratic institutions is significantly weakened. That is what our foes want.

[Peter Swallow]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s argument. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and a representative from Meta spoke to the Committee just last week. I was very concerned about their answers when probed on the work that needs to be done to protect social media sites from foreign interference. Does he share my concerns that social media companies are not doing enough to tackle this issue on their platforms?

[Justin Madders]

In my experience, Meta does not care about the truth. We heard from the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) about what he experienced, and I have had the same experiences: stuff goes up, it does not meet the threshold, it carries on and the lies continue to be propagated. Meta’s indifference is a danger to our democracy and that absolutely needs tackling.

There are long-standing rules on how political parties can use paid-for advertising in the offline world, but we have effectively gone from a situation where we have banal party political broadcasts on terrestrial channels to a virtual free-for-all online. That leads to deliberate distortions, misleading claims and half-truths being pushed into social media feeds with absolutely no checks on their accuracy and little recourse, as we have heard, to challenge their spread.

Representation of the People Bill

Peter Swallow Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the Lib Dem spokesperson. I cannot stand here and unilaterally write the terms of reference for the taskforce, but I would be happy to discuss with her at a later stage what the taskforce would entail. She also spoke about voter registration provisions. We will move towards more automated voter registration, but that takes time. We hope to use existing powers or non-legislative approaches as part of that.

The Government fully recognise the challenges posed by AI-generated content, including deepfakes. Although there is not yet a reliable or widely adopted technical basis for determining AI-generated content, we will continue to explore solutions and are taking the first steps forward. Several amendments relate to social media and elections. The Government agree that we must protect the integrity of our elections from malign influence, and greater transparency is part of that. We believe that the way to achieve that is through a new targeted transparency regime. That is why we are strengthening the imprint framework through the Bill. We have taken steps to tackle a range of threats from foreign states that are actively seeking to disrupt our political system. We are alive to the issues that Members have raised in this debate through their amendments, such as those on deepfakes and online harassment, and the Government are continuing to assess the best way to mitigate those concerns.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

I chair the all-party group on schools, learning and assessment, and we conducted an inquiry on votes at 16. We were speaking directly to young people, and they are delighted that the Bill will empower them with the vote. However, they are equally concerned about misinformation and disinformation, and having the tools that they need to engage in the democratic process. Does the Minister agree that that is a key issue, and that if we are to empower young people with the vote, we must also empower them with the tools that they need to use that vote in an informed and engaged way?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important contribution. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, which I chaired formerly, will continue to consider such issues, and many hon. Members will continue to feed into our proposals as we develop them.

In conclusion, I wish briefly to reflect on the purpose of the Bill. Many Members will recall the toll that the last general election took on those who stood for election. The Electoral Commission’s research told us that more than half of candidates faced harassment or intimidation in the course of campaigning.

The Speaker’s Conference heard worse: families targeted, tyres slashed and campaigners driven away from the streets where they were trying to represent candidates. Women and candidates from minority ethnic backgrounds bore this disproportionately. I know from conversations I have had with Members from across the House, including with those who sometimes do not want to discuss the issue because doing so can invite further abuse, that this was not confined to the doorsteps—it reached people’s homes and their families. This is not robust political debate—it is organised intimidation and it strikes at the willingness of good people to stand for office, or even not stand.

A democracy that cannot protect those who offer themselves for its service is not in any sense one that is secure. This Bill will not fix that on its own—no legislation could—but it takes this House further than before, extending disqualification for hostility motivated offences to cover election staff as well as candidates, adding a new aggravating factor for such offences, and working with the Electoral Commission on a code of conduct and improved safety guidance for returning officers and candidates alike. The Bill will sit alongside a wider purpose: trust in our elections is not owed to us as parliamentarians, but earned through the integrity of the system we ask people to trust.

The Bill secures a system against foreign and elicit money, closing routes that hostile actors have sought to exploit through crypto-currency, opaque company structures and unlimited overseas donations. It protects the people who make our elections happen—candidates, campaigners and electoral staff alike. It keeps our democracy open to legitimate voters, including for the first time those aged 16 and 17, a change that I have long campaigned for and I am glad to bring to the House as the Minister now responsible for it. It modernises the machinery of registration and absent voting, so that participating in our democracy is neither harder nor more confusing than it needs to be.

The next stage of the Bill is shaped by extensive engagement, by the Rycroft review’s recommendations, which the Government have accepted in full, and by many Members across the House who have brought expertise and lived experience, in some cases at a personal cost, to this debate. I thank all colleagues involved in getting us to where we are at this stage, and to state again that the Government remain committed to doing whatever is necessary. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 72 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 76

Entering into of regulated transactions under Part 4A of PPERA 2000

“(1) Part 4A of PPERA 2000 (regulation of loans and related transactions) is amended as follows.

(2) In section 71F (regulated transactions), after subsection (9) insert—

“(9A) A reference to a regulated transaction being entered into includes a reference to the terms of a regulated transaction being varied so as to increase the value of the transaction.”

(3) In section 71L (offences relating to regulated transactions), omit subsection (12).

(4) In Schedule 7A (control of loans etc to individuals and members associations), in paragraph 1 (operation and construction of Schedule), after sub-paragraph (4) insert—

“(4A) A reference to a controlled transaction being entered into includes a reference to the terms of a controlled transaction being varied so as to increase the value of the transaction.”

(5) In that Schedule, in paragraph 8 (offences), omit sub-paragraph (12).”—(Florence Eshalomi.)

This new Clause would make amendments relating to the circumstances in which a regulated transaction is entered into for the purposes of Part 4A of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and takes the place of amendments that are currently made by Schedule 8 to the Bill.

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.