Voter ID Pilots

Stephen Kerr Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

If this is about voter suppression, the Labour party clearly does not want any members, because it uses it for its own party membership. This is not about voter suppression, nor is it about disenfranchisement. I object strongly to the use of those words to describe what is being done. This is a reasonable step to protect voters’ choices. It is simple common sense, as the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) said, that people should be able to show who they are at the polling station.

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his campaigning over time on these issues, because he is right to keep consistent scrutiny on how we can help as many people as possible to be registered in this country. I hope he knows that I share his determination to make our registers as complete and accurate as they can be and to have as many people taking part in our elections as possible. Recent figures suggest that we have record levels of electoral registration in this country. They fluctuate slightly throughout electoral cycles, as he will know because he looks at these things closely. The point is that we do have a thriving democracy in this country—let us keep it that way.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

One of the many things about Stirling constituency that I am really proud of is the level of democratic engagement. Turnouts in my constituency are always well above any kind of average that can be picked out of all the statistics that are available on elections. When will the Minister be able to update the House on the specifics of how her Department is trying to drive up engagement in the democratic process across all parts of our society?

[Chloe Smith]

I look forward very much to being able to do that. I will do it in conjunction with my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) in the coming months, because as Members may know, I shall be taking maternity leave shortly.

In the first instance, I direct my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) to our democratic engagement plan, which sets out the principles of how we intend to engage people and how we will work with partners across the electoral community to do so. Of course, we have to work with colleagues in the devolved Administrations and local councils up and down the country. We are doing that and have set out a range of plans. We will update the House regularly when we have the opportunity to do so. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that we will come back with an evaluation of these pilots in due course, as we did last year. We expect the independent Electoral Commission to do the same thing again in the summer period, after the elections.