Robert Goodwill
Main Page: Robert Goodwill (Conservative - Scarborough and Whitby)Department Debates - View all Robert Goodwill's debates with the Cabinet Office
(6 years ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Chloe Smith
This policy is in no way about suppressing votes. It is a huge shame that any voters listening to this debate today will hear one side of the House talking their prospects down and saying that they are somehow unable to produce the kind of ID that we routinely produce in everyday life. The five co-operating local authorities have come forward to run the pilots because they can best serve their citizens by doing so and providing alternative arrangements.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Has the Minister had the same experience on the doorstep as I have, with voters who have mislaid their polling cards finding it hard to believe that they can turn up to vote without any form of identification?
Chloe Smith
Yes, I have had that experience, and I would be surprised if many Members had not heard that from voters. The widespread assumption among voters is that ID is needed already. What we are doing is bringing Great Britain’s electoral system into line with other parts of the world, including Northern Ireland—inside the UK, of course—and Canada, which already run such a system successfully with turnout remaining up and evidence of fraud down.