Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Burns Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

The issue of language in polling stations is an important part of the package of measures in our response to my right hon. Friend’s report. If electoral administrators are to do their job and be confident that no one is being put under undue pressure or influence when voting, it is important that we look at the question of language. At the same time, the Government’s announcements will be thorough and based on correct analysis, and we will be going through due process to ensure that all the impact assessments are correct.

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

2. What his policy is on proposals to pilot voter identification measures in polling stations.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

3. What his policy is on proposals to pilot voter identification measures in polling stations.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

In our response to the review of electoral fraud by my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles), we outlined our intention to run several pilot schemes in a number of local authority areas in 2018, the purpose of which is to test the impact on elections of asking electors to present identification before voting.

[Sir Simon Burns]

Does my hon. Friend agree that voting is one of a citizen’s most important duties, and that introducing proof of ID would bring voting into line with other everyday transactions such as getting a mortgage or renting a car?

[Chris Skidmore]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. When it comes to voting, there cannot be a more important transaction someone can make over five years than to democratically elect their Member of Parliament or councillor. It is right that that process is respected and that, as for so many other transactions in the modern world, we bring it up to date. It is not acceptable for someone simply to turn up at the voting booth, point out their name and claim that as their identity. That does not happen anywhere else. It is time to bring our democracy up to date.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Gummer]

In the measures I have described today, I shall.

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

T8. Does my right hon. Friend accept that although we are told that it is good to talk, Departments are making it infinitely more difficult for Members to contact private offices on behalf of their constituents due to inaccuracies and the withdrawal of the central register of private office numbers? Will the Minister tell us when the practice of putting communal numbers in the register will be stopped, and the individual numbers of Ministers’ private offices will be restored as they were, so that we can have proper communications between Ministers’ offices and Members on behalf of our constituents’ needs?

[Ben Gummer]

I owe Members an apology for this. It is true that some of the telephone numbers in the directory were inaccurate and some were general numbers. The revision is being made quarterly—the next one is in March—and I have instructed all Departments to provide private office numbers, as Members rightly expect.