Covid-19

Steve Baker Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We will do whatever we can to support the coach sector and all other sectors across the country. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have put in place a massive programme of loans, grants and support of all kinds. It is clear that the best thing for businesses in his constituency and across the country is not to paralyse the economy now and not to go back into lockdown, but to defeat the virus in so far as we possibly can and allow the economy to move forward—but we will continue to give whatever help we can.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am thankful for my right hon. Friend’s commitments on parliamentary scrutiny. He will know that many Members of the House and members of the public are concerned about the use of delegated powers, and I am sure that he remembers the sifting Committee from the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Will he please consider whether some innovative thinking can be applied to ensure that the authority of this House is brought to bear on these measures in advance, so that the public can have confidence that their representatives are authorising the use of law to constrain their freedom?

Covid-19 Update

Steve Baker Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady, and she is absolutely right to raise the point that she does. She will have heard that we want enhanced, greater, more immediate and more efficient testing for those high-contact groups. Over the past few months, we have seen black and minority ethnic people very, very substantially represented in trades and professions that have been very much exposed to coronavirus, and we want to make sure that we help immediately, by targeting those groups with extra testing. But I think there are more lessons to be learned for the future, and that is why we have set up the commission that we have and will be drawing further conclusions in due course.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Wycombe will rejoice. I want to thank the experts who have guided us through this crisis, but I observe that when information is incomplete, when information and knowledge is uncertain, experts disagree with one another. For the sake of the public, the Government and, indeed, the experts themselves, will my right hon. Friend have a meeting with me and with Professor Roger Koppl, a scholar in the field of expert failure, to discuss how things can be done better in the future?

[The Prime Minister]

I think I know Roger Koppl and I would be very interested to hear what he has to say, but I must say I think that the guidance from our scientists has been incredibly valuable. It has helped us throughout the period. But be in no doubt—I am sure my hon. Friend will understand—that the decisions that we have taken are decisions that we as Government have taken, and for which we take full responsibility.

Public Services

Steve Baker Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

New guidance was issued and approved on the appropriate use of personal protective equipment in health and also in social care settings some fortnight ago, and the Clipper service will be there to ensure that all local resilience forums and local service providers can have access to additional personal protective equipment.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con) [V]]

Will my right hon. Friend explain how he is working with the devolved Administrations to ensure that all four nations of the UK have the best possible advice in a timely manner to ensure that they are able to deal with this pandemic?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to stress that working together across the United Kingdom is the right way to deal with this pandemic. The chief medical officers of all four parts of the United Kingdom meet regularly and scientific advice is shared across the United Kingdom. We want to ensure, as we ease any restrictions, that we do so in as united a way as possible, because consistency of messaging is critical to ensuring that all of us see some of our cherished liberties restored while at the same time protecting precious lives.

Electoral Practices

Steve Baker Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

It is a privilege to lead the first Adjournment debate of this Parliament, on electoral practices, especially with so much time stretching before us—something I have long dreamed of. I am sure that the Minister will not mind my saying that. I am especially grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for selecting the debate, because I have sought it for some time.

On 26 September, I intervened in a general debate on the principles of democracy and the rights of the electorate after a number of my constituents had contacted me about plans to introduce voter ID, which they believed to be unnecessary. I am afraid that I fundamentally disagree and am pleased with the commitments that the Conservative party made in our manifesto. In my intervention, I talked about the scale of unlawful electoral practice in Wycombe and I promised to apply for this Adjournment debate to elaborate and to ask what the Government will do to combat abuses of our electoral system. I subsequently published an article, on which this speech expands.

My objective is to ensure that free and fair, open and lawful elections take place in the UK without cheating. It is about upholding the principle that every entitled voter should have one vote and cast it freely. It is to ensure the proper functioning of our democracy. There can be no question of disenfranchising anyone, or of constraining legitimate political discourse. However, it is a sad reality that systems of rules are always gamed. It is a sad reality that the rules of general and council elections are being gamed today. Evidently, some are happy to cheat to win.

Since the legitimacy of political power rests on the consent of the public, expressed at the ballot box, action is required. Since I have already had some foolish and vexatious reactions to my article, I wish to make it clear, up front, that the fundamental reason for this debate is to stand with the law-abiding majority across all sections of my diverse constituency, including EU nationals and people of Asian descent, against the corruption perpetrated against them by certain individuals. I seek to advance justice and equality for all.

Furthermore, I am confident that the agents of the main political parties in Wycombe conduct their campaigns with an unimpeachable commitment to the integrity of the democratic process. However, despite their integrity, I am clear that rules are being broken by or on behalf of particular individuals.

I pay tribute at this point to the indefatigable zeal of my agent, Mrs Susan Hynard, who, over some 30 years, has worked harder than anyone I could name, and possibly as hard as anyone in the country, to ensure not only cross-community politics, but that our elections are conducted in a proper, fair and decent manner of which we can all be proud. I am very grateful.

I am sure of the account I give tonight. I could easily identify persons involved under the privileges of the House, but I do not intend tonight to use that privilege unnecessarily. I am aware that by the time evidence has reached me, it is often hearsay. However, what I am going to say is sourced to a high level of confidence, including, in some cases, to the standard required to make referrals to the police. That has been done.

I believe that the overwhelming majority of my constituents and people across the country would be shocked if they knew the extent of corrupt election practices and voter fraud, which happen every time there is an election. In Wycombe, we have reason to believe that an important council seat, which the Conservatives held, was lost as a result of corrupt election practices. We think that the extent of corrupt practice could be material in parliamentary elections.

So what do we find is being done? I know of people who register to vote at different addresses in our town and then cast a vote in the same election more than once. In one instance, we have evidence that a man voted once in person and once by postal vote in the same election. My constituents tell me, astonishingly, that people living outside the area will register to vote using friends’ and families’ addresses in order to support a particular candidate. I can understand that some people would want to vote against me, the Conservative candidate, but I object to people being shipped in to do it. In one case, private data held for legitimate purposes was used to apply for postal votes without the consent of the elector, and those postal votes were then intercepted before the electors had a chance to discover and complete them. That is a premeditated theft of votes, but the victims would not make a formal complaint for fear of retribution. I am disgusted to think that today’s system of postal voting should facilitate something so redolent of the old rotten boroughs.

We also know of landlords who register to vote at properties that they own, but where they do not reside. When we look at the register, we need not be presumptuous about these people and the relations they have with the occupants of the same property, because when we look at the names we often know the people involved. I am well aware that it is not an offence to be registered at two addresses and in specimen cases where people can be shown to have voted twice, we have reported them, but no prosecutions have followed.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to be involved in an Adjournment debate, and as this is the first one of the season, I was obviously keen to come along and support the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), who wants to uphold the honesty and integrity of the electoral practices. Does he agree that the scheme that allows students in some cases to vote at university and in some cases to vote at home must be reassessed and reviewed? One person, one vote was democracy in the past, and one person, one vote is democracy today.

[Mr Baker]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, and I hope he will not mind me teasing him a bit when I say I am delighted that he has intervened in the Adjournment debate and that normal service has therefore been resumed. He is absolutely right, and he knows that I agree with him. One person, one vote cast freely—that is the principle of our democracy. I am slightly reluctant to single out students, although I agree with him that there is a potential problem with students voting in two locations. The crucial point here is to ensure that people vote only once and that they are prosecuted if they vote twice, but our system should prohibit that. Whether we should rule out students and others from registering in two locations is something to which I would be glad to hear the Minister’s response.

[Jim Shannon]

In Northern Ireland, we have had a number of examples of well-orchestrated, well-detailed and witnessed instances of illegal voting taking place. The Electoral Commission in Northern Ireland has taken many steps to try to change that and to make the process more accountable, but there are still examples across Northern Ireland of things going wrong. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Minister could perhaps look at some of the practices that we have introduced in Northern Ireland to stop illegal voting, and that this might also help the hon. Gentleman’s efforts to stop it?

[Mr Baker]

I absolutely agree, and I think that the Government should certainly look extremely closely at the precedent established within the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland. Certainly, if it is good enough for Northern Ireland on this subject, I would think that as a starting premise, it is good enough for the rest of the nations of the United Kingdom.

We have found foreign nationals on the electoral roll living legally in the United Kingdom, but who are neither nationals of the UK or the Commonwealth nor citizens of the Republic of Ireland or another EU country. Nevertheless, they are on our register to vote. In one case, we were able to establish a man’s nationality via Companies House. From his correspondence, it was clear that he was on the electoral roll with the intention of voting in this general election, but without any entitlement to do so. I have received accounts of candidates visiting electors’ homes, demanding that postal votes are completed in front of them and then taking them away. I am sorry to say that we cannot assume that voters enjoy secrecy and freedom when marking a ballot paper at home.

Only last week, my agent reported to the police evidence we have received regarding the harvesting of postal votes in favour of a particular candidate. I have testimony of one young woman’s unmarked postal vote being taken from her under duress by a relative and handed to a candidate. We learned about that because she told another candidate that she wanted to cancel the postal vote, so that she could cast it again herself in a different way. What a tragic situation to have descended into. It is an abuse that we must not tolerate.

There are instances of people impersonating others and voting at polling stations in their place. Again, we know of some of these cases being reported to the police without prosecutions following. We have received reports from electors in Wycombe that activists working on behalf of particular candidates have sought to procure votes for as little as £10, a free taxi ride or a free pizza. This simply cannot go on.

As I have previously mentioned in this place, in 2015 my agent and I personally reported one of my own party’s council candidates to the police. We told our candidates that we would hold them to the highest standards and that we would be the first to report them to the police if we received evidence of corrupt practice, because we will not tolerate it. Though it gave us no pleasure, we did what we said we would do. My agent has on other occasions raised specific instances of electoral abuse with both the police and the Electoral Commission. Sadly, prosecutions have not followed. It is a theme that comes up time and again. I am keen to hear from my hon. Friend the Minister, if she can tell me, why prosecutions are not taking place.

In summary, votes are being cast which ought not to be cast, votes which ought to be cast are being cast by those who ought not to be casting them, votes are being cast in particular ways as a result of treating and intimidation and, for various reasons, prosecutions are not forthcoming. That is to say nothing of the truth that votes have significantly different weights in different constituencies, so I say only in passing that constituency sizes must be equalised, as near as we can, if people’s votes are to have political equality.

When individual voter registration was introduced, it was expected that it would remove the abuse of people registering at addresses where they were not entitled to do so, but it seems not to be working. What is to be done? The law is often very clear. One may not, for example, offer a pizza in return for a vote. However, it is not clear that appropriate importance is always attributed to each and every vote and to prosecuting offences. I am clear that when one vote is stolen, or otherwise corrupted away, it is not just a pencil mark on a piece of paper but the inheritance of a tradition of liberty and equality fought for at great cost and handed down over centuries. If we fail to understand the magnitude of the corruption of even a single vote, we are a politically bankrupt nation.

Our current electoral system has not caught up with population growth and the realities of modern life. Our procedures have become somewhat quaint, a point which struck me when I looked at the rules for candidates entering polling stations. They say that we can go there to check for personation. While I know many of my constituents, I do not know a sufficient number that I can go into every polling station and have any chance of spotting personation. The rules seem inadequate for the modern age. However, even as a software engineer who has looked into the matter, I would not support the introduction of electronic voting machines because they, too, are dangerously corruptible.

I would like my hon. Friend the Minister to set out what plans and procedures, perhaps drawing on our manifesto commitments, she intends to put in place to strengthen the integrity of elections and, in particular, to ensure that the electoral roll is an accurate reflection of people’s entitlement to vote. What steps will she take to ensure that people vote only once, that if they vote more than once, they are prosecuted, and that that prosecution carries meaningful penalties? What steps will the Government take to stamp out treating? What steps will the Government take to reduce intimidation, in particular in relation to postal votes, even though that may involve curtailing access to postal votes for the law-abiding majority—people who I believe would be shocked and appalled by the things I have set out? I know from my constituents and others that there are objections to voter ID, with a suggestion that people might be disenfranchised. We must not disenfranchise anyone and the Government must take appropriate steps, but what will the Government do to ensure there is no restriction of the franchise while ensuring that people identify themselves properly?

[Jim Shannon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Baker]

Of course. Northern Ireland has relevant experience.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so gracious in allowing interventions.

Northern Ireland already has voter ID, and it is successful. People find that it works. Although there may have been some initial objections or concerns, the scheme works well. The Government have suggested that they will commit themselves to voter ID, which is a good idea. We have done it in Northern Ireland, and it is working.

[Mr Baker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

Before I conclude, I will briefly touch on two practices that are not fair game and that the law needs to address more fully. The first is third-party unregistered campaigners who produce sometimes slanderous campaign material with no imprint and no oversight, and without the approval of legitimate campaigns and their agents. The ability to circulate bold, misleading and slanderous statements on social media, often in private and securely, means messages can circulate quickly and widely. As reported by the Guido Fawkes website, a particularly egregious campaign was run in my constituency in support of the Labour candidate, despite the campaigner not being registered as a third party. Others are independently pursuing that campaigner, and I wish them Godspeed, but what will the Government do on unregistered third-party campaigners?

Secondly, it seems quite unjust that we should tolerate candidates with no obvious platform who stand in an election with no apparent aim beyond increasing the total budget available to oppose a particular candidate, with access to free delivery of literature by Royal Mail, a copy of the electoral roll and other privileges available to legitimate candidates. If this principle of standing candidates simply to expand the budget available to oppose another candidate—possibly the incumbent, as at least one of my colleagues would attest—is allowed, the trajectory towards every candidate running one or more shadow candidates in their support is both obvious and undesirable.

There are other practices that I find extremely distasteful, particularly in relation to the general standard of political campaigning, but I will not go on about them tonight because they should not be objects of the law. I will leave them for another day. I have raised the matters I wish to focus on tonight.

John Stuart Mill, that great beacon of liberal thinkers on political and social theory and, most famously, on liberty, said in 1867:

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

Tonight I am looking on and doing something. I am saying to my hon. Friend the Minister, who I hope and expect agrees with me on all these issues, that in a peaceful society, one governed by the rule of law, the ultimate tool we have to restrain the use of power in our lives and to give consent to it is our vote. Political equality and a free and fair ballot are fundamental prerequisites to living in a free society. That is what is at stake in this debate. A great deal was said in my constituency during the general election campaign about cleaning up politics. A good place to start is ensuring that, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said earlier, one entitled person casts one vote freely and in secrecy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. I can confirm that in the pilots we have run we have made sure that anybody who lacks the specified form of ID has been able to apply, free of charge, for local electoral ID from their local authority. Indeed, we have heard of cases where that has proved hugely valuable in individuals’ lives for reasons other than elections, because they now have a form of official ID that it is possible to use. I can point to a really heart-warming example of a number of homeless individuals in Woking, during one of the pilots last year. That measure in itself ensures that everybody who is eligible to vote has the opportunity to do so, which is fundamental. While I am on this subject, I should also point out that other countries already require voter ID. If we look at Australia, Canada and the Netherlands, we can see clear examples from around the globe where ID is a normal part of the voting process.

The evaluation of the pilots we have done show that voter ID is a success for the public: there is higher public confidence in elections in the voter ID pilot areas, which is important. The Electoral Commission found a notable decrease in the number of people who were worried about the integrity of our elections when voter ID was in place. That returns us to the core point that if the public has confidence in our elections, they are more likely to take part, which is what we all want to see. Our evaluations also show that the huge majority of electors who came to vote did so with the right documents and with confidence in knowing how to. Based on those evaluations, we can also say that there is no indication that any particular demographic was adversely affected by the voter ID models. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe will use that to reassure any remaining constituents of his who might be interested in the details of how such a scheme works.

I reassure the House that that voter ID is backed by a range of third-party organisations: not only the Electoral Commission but international election observers such as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which has repeatedly called for its introduction. That is important. As I have said, my hon. Friend is so right about the importance of tackling electoral fraud, and I am sad to hear that other parties in the House are not supportive of doing so. We will want to take up that argument again in this place another time.

The next steps here are that the Government will continue to work with local authorities throughout the UK, as well as with those that piloted voter ID at the local elections in 2018 and 2019, to make sure that the model works successfully for all voters. I would be delighted if Wycombe District Council wanted to take part in future.

[Mr Baker]

I assure my hon. Friend that I will give her all my support to make Wycombe a pilot area for voter ID. May I press her on another point? A voter might conceivably correctly identify themselves, yet still vote twice. I can think of ways—I will not elaborate now—to check that without establishing a single giant database. What steps will the Government take to make sure that people do not vote twice, and that if they do, they are prosecuted?

[Chloe Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend for sharpening the point about voting twice. There are a couple of things to which I was going to come later. First, I reassure my hon. Friend with regard to something we are doing that goes by the name of canvass reform. We are getting deep into the technicalities of how elections run, but everyone in this place values this. I ask my hon. Friend to take a look at canvass reform, because there he will find new data-matching practices used by local authorities to check people’s entitlement to register to vote, which is of course preceded by working out who is in each household, which is the point of the annual canvass, as my hon. Friend will know. There are a number of steps in that process, which is being reformed, to make sure that we allow registration officers to focus their resources where they are needed most.

We think of that mostly in terms of helping those who are least easy to find to invite to apply to register to vote. It is about registration officers fulfilling their duty, which is to encourage everybody to register to vote. Of course it is right that they should focus their resources where they are most needed, instead of following cumbersome processes that are otherwise defined in the electoral law. For the purposes of this argument, there is also an extra merit here, which is that publicly held data sets can increasingly be used to better understand voters in a given area and perhaps to look into some of the issues that my hon. Friend is touching on in his arguments.

I should say that voter ID is not the only step that we are taking. Hon. Members might be aware of the Pickles report into electoral fraud. There is much to do to implement its recommendations. In fact, we are part way through doing so. It is here that Members will find the Government’s commitment to working on matters such as undue influence and to updating the law, which again are relevant to some of the points that my hon. Friend made.

We will also be looking at postal and proxy voting as part of that. We intend to ban political campaigners from handling postal votes, and we will also establish a requirement on those who are registered for a postal vote to reapply every three years—currently, registration can last indefinitely. We will limit the number of proxy votes that a person may exercise to no more than two per elector regardless of their relationship with the voter for whom they are voting. On this point, may I highlight the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Damien Moore) who did some very great work? I am not sure whether he is here with us tonight. I spoke to him only this afternoon on this matter. He introduced the Bill in the previous Session. It was an excellent piece of legislation because it made provision to ban political campaigners from handling another voter’s postal vote, and to introduce a limit on the number of postal ballots that anybody may hand in on behalf of other voters at a polling station or to a returning officer on polling day. Those are all known vulnerabilities in the system that we seek to remove. I pay tribute to his work on that important issue. That Bill was not able to complete its parliamentary stages, but there is a lot more to do, and we in the Government are committed to building on that, particularly with regard to stopping the harvesting of postal votes at elections.

I want to come on to enforcement. This is, I think, the core part of the concern that my hon. Friend is articulating here tonight. He will understand that I will not be in a position to comment on the particular evidence in cases that he has referred to, but I can give him reassurance that there is much work going on to look at consistency and enforcement across the country. I want to do more of that, because evidently when an hon. Member comes to the House with stories as he has done tonight, it is clear that this work is not complete, so it must go on.

Regular meetings take place between myself, as the Minister for the Constitution, and the Electoral Commission and the National Police Chiefs Council. That is one forum that we have used to try to achieve consistency and the review of systemic issues. If there were any elements of my hon. Friend’s presentation tonight that he thinks I should raise in that forum, I would be happy to hear them.

The Cabinet Office has also been working closely with the Electoral Commission to run a very large awareness campaign. [Interruption.] Please, excuse me, Mr Speaker. All of the activities this autumn have taken a toll on my voice. Thank goodness it is Christmas very shortly so that I can cease speaking.

[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend mentioned awareness. One of our problems is that people are all too aware of the vulnerabilities in the system. One man I could name who, for the sake of clarity, is an Irishman. I will not name him any further than that. He is so obviously guilty of voting once by postal vote and once in person that I could name him outside the House and be confident that I would not be sued, and yet he was not prosecuted when we put out the evidence. I am very keen that we fine people—gosh, jail them if they are really repeat offenders—because they know what the vulnerabilities are and they are exploiting them. I was shown evidence earlier today of somebody boasting in a WhatsApp group of having driven two and a half hours to vote against me from his home where he had already voted. This cannot go on.

[Chloe Smith]

Yes, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend about the gravity of the situation. I hear his point about the penalties that may follow when evidence is presented. None the less, it is also important to encourage the victims of this crime to speak up, so it is excellent that my hon. Friend and others are playing their part by raising such evidence. It is also important that we help other victims to do so. Even better, we should help them not to be a victim of such fraud in the first place by knowing that their vote is theirs alone; in fact, that was the strapline of the awareness campaign to which I have referred.

There is a lot more to do and much work that can be done to help the Electoral Commission, the police and local authorities to get on top of the issue when evidence is raised. I am keen to offer the commitment to the House that if any Member wishes to raise such issues with me, I will take those anecdotes and observations as a portfolio of evidence that I might be able to use to take this work forward. There are also some granular ways in which we can target such behaviour. For example, it is sensible that police community support officers are now allowed into polling stations by law, which means that police are available to tackle issues on polling day should they be identified.

Earlier I mentioned canvass reform and the ways in which registration officers are able to use data better than they were in the past. Let me also give my hon. Friend a pointer about the system of individual electoral registration. I do not know the dates of all the issues he has raised. It is possible that some of his points go back some years, which might predate the introduction of individual electoral registration; I am absolutely confident that my hon. Friend has looked into this carefully and knows exactly what I am driving at. The point is that we value a system in which an individual should be responsible for their registration, as opposed to somebody being able to register for them—let alone register them without their consent, which was a further point made by my hon. Friend.

My hon. Friend also referred to double voting. Following the 2017 election, I heard concerns from hon. Members that there appeared to be some evidence that certain groups may have been engaging in double voting. My predecessor and I undertook to take all such allegations and seek for them to be investigated in a co-ordinated way through co-operation between the Electoral Commission and the National Police Chiefs Council. I am keen to do so again if there is a weight of such observations, perhaps running as high as allegations. As I said, I would be happy to hear such things from any colleagues if they perceive that something needs to be investigated at a systemic level.

The Government are committed to strengthening the integrity of our electoral system. This is vital, because the public ought to have confidence that our elections are secure and fit for the 21st century. If people are confident in our democracy, they are more likely to participate in it; all the benefits that my hon. Friend has laid out so meticulously will flow from there, and we will know that our democracy is doing its job.

The measures that we are looking to achieve, which will flow in this Parliament, we hope, will provide greater security for everybody, whether they vote in person, by post or by proxy. We think this is a job to be done on the side of voters, not on the side of those who wish to corrupt democracy. We also think very strongly that we should not be taking our democracy for granted in any way, so our work to protect, promote and strengthen our democracy is never done. People do deserve to have confidence in the system. As the Prime Minister said earlier in this place, this is a moment of great democratic importance—a moment to repay the trust of those who have sent us here, to deliver on their priorities, and to ensure that our democracy thrives from now onwards.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Baker Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is important to strike a balance, and people should be allowed to celebrate Guy Fawkes night and other occasions with fireworks, but the hon. Gentleman is plainly right that they are very disturbing for animals. My right hon. Friend the Business Secretary is looking at this very matter. I would just point out that, on animal welfare, it may interest him to know that there are measures we will be able to implement as a result of Brexit—such as banning sow farrowing crates, for instance, which I think is of great concern to our constituents, and banning the live export of animals—that we would not otherwise be able to do. That is one of the reasons why we need to get Brexit done and take this country forward.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Q10.   Thousands of British people in Wycombe have family and friends on one or both sides of the line of control in Kashmir. With so many serious allegations of human rights abuses being made, do the Government accept that this is not merely some foreign policy issue to be dealt with by others, but that it is an issue of the most immediate and profound concern in Wycombe and in towns across the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend, and he is absolutely right not just that this matters very much to him and to his constituents, but that the welfare of communities in Kashmir is of profound concern to the UK Government. He also knows, of course, that it is the long-standing position of the UK Government that the crisis in Kashmir is fundamentally a matter for India and Pakistan to resolve and, alas, since we were there at the very beginning of this crisis, he will understand that, for long-standing reasons, it is not for us as the UK to prescribe a solution in that dispute.

Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Steve Baker Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson]

That was a rather longer intervention than some of my right hon. Friend’s interventions, but he makes a very good point. During the campaign, we will no longer be Members of Parliament, which has a bearing not just on schools and school visits, but on events such as Remembrance Sunday. I understand we are expecting a ruling or some guidance from Mr Speaker on that point.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I just popped out to ask an authoritative source whether we have given way on the date, and I understand that the Government have not given way, but who knows what discussions are going on.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, not least because it means we can hear from other colleagues on this point. It shows that these whispers on the wind are not always accurate. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t—we will find out in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash]

Ha, ha—well, I must say I find that very amusing, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for saying it.

The name that this Parliament has now acquired and deserves—the Purgatory Parliament—is, I believe, appropriate and right in the circumstances. I would say this to the Committee, as I did some weeks ago on another occasion: in the name of God, go. I believe that this is the moment for this Parliament to depart, in the words of Oliver Cromwell all those years ago. The Speaker has quite frequently referred to 17th-century precedents, so I say again to this Parliament: in the name of God, go. Let us get on with a general election and let us get Brexit done.

[Mr Baker]

Amendment 14 has the effect of aligning the registration deadline for Scotland with the registration deadline in the rest of the United Kingdom, by removing the need for the St Andrew’s day bank holiday in Scotland to be taken into account. I congratulate the Minister on his wisdom in bringing forward that sensible amendment, but I wonder whether he could confirm that Scotland is being treated fairly with this amendment. On the Conservative Benches, we are most concerned to ensure the fair treatment of Scotland. We are very proud that Scotland is in the United Kingdom, and we are determined to ensure the fair treatment of people throughout the great country of Scotland.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Baker]

I knew that one of them would not be able to resist.

[Patrick Grady]

I hate to burst the hon. Gentleman’s bubble, but if the Government had thought it through, that would have been provided for in the original Bill. This may well have been gently pointed out to them from sources other than their own Benches.

[Mr Baker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He has just proven to me that, contrary to the remarks we hear so often from those on the SNP Benches, sometimes the British Government listen to the voice of Scotland, respect the voice of Scotland and act on the voice of Scotland. I am very proud of those on the Treasury Bench and grateful to the Minister for doing just that.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

My hon. Friend talks about the voice of Scotland. It is listened to, but he must remember that the SNP are not Scotland. They may sell themselves as such, but they are not Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Baker]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who reminds me that he is one of the most powerful champions of the voice of Scotland. Though I wish to pay tribute to him for a little longer, I should move on to amendments 2 and 3, which seek to change the date of the election. Why anyone would wish to move the date from the traditional day of a Thursday to a Monday, I cannot imagine. I am rather concerned that it is based on some perceived advantage of holding the poll on a Monday, which obviously would not be appropriate.

Dame Eleanor, I hope you will forgive me if I dilate a little on some of the other amendments. I received some constituency correspondence today asking me to back amendment 1, which relates to citizens of the European Union. Whatever our love for the citizens of the European Union who are in the UK, and however willing and delighted we are to embrace their work and welcome them to stay in the UK, it would be quite wrong to expand the franchise—

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I understand why the hon. Gentleman is taking this opportunity to speak to amendment 1, but as that amendment has not been selected, it is out of order for him to speak to it. However, if he were to make his remarks in the context of amendments 2 or 3, he would be in order.

[Mr Baker]

Thank you, Dame Eleanor. I will just say, in the context of amendments 2 or 3, that any attempt to gerrymander the poll to try to produce a particular result would be wrong and outrageous. Some of the other amendments tabled, which went beyond amendments 2 and 3, were quite blatant attempts to produce a particular result. That is wrong, and I am grateful that they have not been selected.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that, if the marvellous Laura Kuenssberg is to be believed—I am sure she is—Britain would have been the only country in the European Union to allow non-nationals to vote in a general election?

[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend is right, as is the wonderful Laura Kuenssberg. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, as the Prime Minister has said.

[Ian Blackford]

I should point out to the hon. Gentleman that EU nationals are given the vote in Scottish elections, and they voted in the 2014 referendum. [Interruption.] I hear Conservatives shouting “national”; I hate to point this out, but Scotland is a nation.

[Mr Baker]

I think Conservative Members are quite comfortable with the notion that Scotland is a nation, but the United Kingdom is the basis for the electorate for this House, and it is quite right that the franchise should therefore be in citizens, or perhaps subjects, of the United Kingdom.

I do feel, Dame Eleanor, that I should now draw my opening remarks to a conclusion. I will simply say, on a serious note, that this Bill of course has to go through the other place. If the other place were to insert amendments in this simple and straightforward Bill that sought to produce a particular outcome, we would have to say that it has no right whatever to do that and that it would be quite unconstitutional. I think its Members would be playing with fire and, indeed, they would be playing with their own futures in that House were they to seek to amend the Bill to produce a particular outcome.

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Thank you—perfect timing.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Steve Baker Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The House will know full well that these are transitory arrangements. If the people of Northern Ireland choose to dissent from them, they melt away, unless by a majority they choose to retain them. I repeat: there will be no checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Nothing in the revised political declaration obliges Northern Ireland to be treated any differently in the future relationship, and I would expect Northern Ireland Members to be involved intimately in devising a whole-UK whole-world trade policy—and, indeed, the whole House.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Is not the fundamental point that, to deliver the UK whole, secure and prosperous out of the EU, Members of this House need to vote for Second Reading and, yes, vote for the programme motion so that it can all be done on time, and then stand firm behind the Prime Minister and his negotiating team, so that he has the power to deliver just the relationship that is being urged upon him to put before the House in due course?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has given excellent advice to the House, and I thank him very much for his support. I wish to stress that the whole House will be involved in devising that future partnership.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Of course, she is absolutely right that, while the Prime Minister claims that there is no intention in his mind to undermine workers’ rights—I cannot see into his mind, so I do not know, but that is what he says—there is no legal protection within this Bill for dynamic alignment with the European Union on consumer rights, environmental protections, workers’ rights and much else besides. I therefore urge colleagues to think very carefully about how they vote on the Bill tonight.

[Mr Baker]

I treasure the interview that the right hon. Gentleman and I gave to Sky News before he became Leader of the Opposition, when the only thing that we agreed on is that we should leave the European Union on democratic grounds. What has changed since he became leader of the Labour party? Can he not see that, if he votes against the programme motion, he and his whole party will be seen as voting against delivering Brexit?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Parliament needs to do its job and that is what we should be given the chance to do; we should not be rushed into this 17 hours after the Bill’s publication. I would also say—I was a trade union organiser and official before I came into this House—you do not give up what you have won and gained; you protect what you have and try to get better in the future. The Bill undermines workers’ rights in our country and in our society, and those who vote this thing through in its present form will find that many of our current rights will be severely damaged.

Preparations for Leaving the European Union

Steve Baker Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I can only answer the question that was asked.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I wholeheartedly congratulate my right hon. Friend and officials right across Government for the magnificent public information campaign that he is running. I hope he will not mind my saying that it is the campaign I would have dreamed of securing from the autumn of 2017 when I first started asking for one. Will he confirm that he has had adequate discussions with business groups to ensure that businesses are properly prepared?

[Michael Gove]

That gives me the opportunity to say a profound thank you to my hon. Friend who, as a Minister in the Department for Exiting the European Union, undertook heroic efforts to ensure that we were as well prepared as possible. In so far as we were not well prepared, it was because of other factors, because his own efforts in that regard were focused, public spirited and highly effective.

It is the case that we have had conversations with lots of business organisations to ensure that they are as well prepared as possible. As I have said before, the impacts of leaving without a deal will depend on different economic sectors reacting in different ways.

Brexit Negotiations

Steve Baker Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I warmly welcome the first half of the hon. Lady’s question.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

We now glimpse the possibility of a tolerable deal, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend on what he has done to make that possible. But will he just reassure me that he is going to be able to make progress towards that advanced free trade agreement which we have both so long wanted to achieve, despite the surrender Act which Opposition Members have voted for?

[The Prime Minister]

It is with no little sense of relief that I listened to my hon. Friend, though he and I have talked a lot in the past few days and I knew that that was broadly his view. This is an opportunity to get this done and do it in a way that not only, I believe, satisfies all the requirements we have set out, above all the peace process in Northern Ireland, but allows the whole of the UK to take back control of our tariffs and our customs, and to do free trade deals around the world, in exactly the way that he has described and campaigned for for so many years.

Principles of Democracy and the Rights of the Electorate

Steve Baker Excerpts

Thursday 26th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker).

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

To help the Minister on this point, I can tell him that the very first moment that I get a chance to sit at my desk I will be asking him to come to the House for an end-of-day Adjournment debate, in which I will give him evidence from my constituents of the kind of practice that is going on in my constituency, in their view, which I am quite sure will stand up to the requirement to make the changes that he would advocate.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will you take it to the police?

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Dowden]

I will give way once more, but am conscious of the need to make progress.

[Mr Baker]

The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) asked, “Will you take it to the police?” I am happy to tell the House today that in the 2015 election, my agent and I told our candidates—because there was a district council election at the same time as mine—that if there was any evidence of malfeasance we would be the first to take it to the police; so I found myself knocking on the door of the police station with the Liberal Democrat candidate and my agent, to report somebody who was subsequently arrested. Unfortunately he was not prosecuted, and he was one of mine. I will not have any abuse of the electoral system, and although I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, I must tell him that we have got to sort this mess out.

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. There is nothing further that I can add to that, but I noticed that the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) was seeking my eye.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I was very pleased earlier today that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) acknowledged that there is a common sense of good motive among Members of Parliament from all parts of the House. I confess that that has not always been reflected in the tone of many of the debates that I have attended, which has been a cause of some sorrow to me, because I believe that there is a huge amount of common ground in this debate on the principles of democracy and the rights of the electorate. Indeed, we were elected to Parliament to uphold those very rights.

I think most of us have a common dream—a dream of a society that is ever more prosperous and free; virtuous or, if not, at least seeking to become more virtuous; and happy, with people pursuing their goals and flourishing to their fullest extent, not trapped in poverty. The shadow Minister talked about the inhumanity and bureaucracy under this Government. I ask her please to read the Centre for Social Justice reports at the time leading up to the 2010 election, because they show that the state is never an instrument of kindness and compassion under any Government. It is always rule-bound and it is always inhumane. One of the things we all must do, which is not the topic of this debate, is to work out how to enable all the wonderful public servants in all our public services to be freer to express the compassion that they personally feel for other human beings. Members will find on the record a speech I made some time ago on just this subject in relation to the personal independence payment.

Now, I believe that democracy is the foundation of this common dream, and that foundation of democracy is something that I feel very deeply about: the moral, legal and political equality of every person. Every single person, irrespective of their actual merits, should be treated by our systems as morally, legally and politically equal. Somebody mentioned boundary changes earlier. My constituency happens to represent about the right number of people, but some constituencies are way too large and some are way too small. That does not reflect political equality.

Democracy ought not to be idolised. Goodness knows that things have gone wrong in the midst of this political crisis. I have referred to the economic crisis many times; I believe that we are in a profound crisis of political economy that goes way beyond the topic of any one particular debate. The fundamental issue at stake, though, is that we need to be able to restrain the coercive power of the state peacefully, at the ballot box.

I want to quote Karl Popper, a very important philosopher who started off on the left. I believe he was a Marxist who fled from Marxism when one of his friends was killed in a riot and the people organising it had no sympathy, saying that you had to break some eggs to make an omelette. At that point, he started thinking about whether communism was in fact scientific. Popper said—I paraphrase his remarks slightly to reflect the spirit of the day—that “You can choose whatever name you like for the two types of government, and I personally call the type of government which can be removed peacefully at the ballot box ‘democracy’, and the other ‘tyranny’.” And that is the fundamental point. The public must be able to withdraw their consent from a system of government, and have it removed and replaced with a system that they prefer. We need a general election now, because this House has clearly withdrawn its consent from today’s Government. The Government should therefore fall, and we should have a general election. It is unconstitutional—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) grumbles from a sedentary position. I cannot hear him, but I will take an intervention if he wishes to make one.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Surely the point is that what we get with a general election is a change of Government. The hon. Gentleman is talking about a system of government, which is a quite different thing.

[Mr Baker]

I am talking about both. I am talking about the principle of democracy, which is the stability that comes from both the Government and the system enjoying democratic legitimacy expressed through the ballot box.

My second point is about the European Union. I am here today, although I care about many things, because of the way that the European Union constitution was handled. It was put to referendums in Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Spain, Austria, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Latvia, Luxembourg, Belgium, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Germany and Finland, all of which said yes. I had read the constitution and I knew that when the referendum came I should vote against it because it was too bureaucratic and therefore, I thought, likely to be inhumane. When it went to France and the Netherlands, they said no, and so referendums were cancelled in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and, yes, the United Kingdom.

But what did the European Union and those who govern it do? They did not change course and say, “It turns out we can’t get this system through the democratic consent of the peoples of Europe, so we must take another course.” As anyone who has read Open Europe’s side-by-side comparison of the Lisbon treaty, which replaced the European constitution, next to that constitution will know, they are functionally equivalent. What they did was an absolute democratic outrage. They changed the constitution of France to avoid a referendum and they made Ireland vote twice. That is why I am in politics.

The fundamental issue at stake today—

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I get the impression that my hon. Friend is on his peroration, so I cannot resist adding a historical footnote on the Lisbon treaty. When a number of us argued that we ought to have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty in the United Kingdom, one party said that we should not have a referendum on that—we should have an in/out referendum on our membership of the European Union. That party was the Liberal Democrats. Where are they on that position today?

[Mr Baker]

Of course, as my right hon. Friend knows, they are now committed to always ignoring a leave result. That, too, is an outrage, but at least they are clear about it, and I feel confident that we could rely on them to abide by it.

The fundamental point is that the people must get the Government they vote for, and they must not get the Government they did not vote for but cannot get rid of. This is a fundamental point related to the dreams we all have of a better society. It is about the dignity of the individual and the right of every person to determine their future peacefully at the ballot box.