Tata Group Gigafactory Investment

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and agree with every single point he made. He mentioned the lithium mine in Cornwall, which will eventually produce enough lithium for 500,000 electric cars and vehicles. There is such success for our supply chain because this Government have a strategy that is embedded in the real-world politics of dealing with the automotive sector, and our critical minerals refresh was exactly the support required for the lithium mine in Cornwall.

It is not just about the financial support; it is also about the ecosystem. Fundamentally, the organisation had faith in initiatives such as the Faraday battery challenge, the Advanced Propulsion Centre and the tech in the UK. All the components that are required are here in the UK, and we have been able to link that ecosystem and supply chain together, which gave Tata the confidence to come and build the biggest gigafactory in Europe here in the UK.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I thank the Minister for her statement and early sight of it. I agree that battery manufacturing capacity is important as part of our move towards EVs, away from petrol and diesel vehicles, and towards all our targets to achieve net zero. It would be remiss of me not to mention that a few years ago, as I am sure the Minister recalls, Dundee was given the “most EV visionary city in Europe” award by the World Electric Vehicle Association in Japan.

Let me turn to the statement itself. A £4 billion or so investment by Tata—that’s good. Substantial investment by Envision in battery production in Sunderland, plus the other investments the Minister mentioned, are of course all welcome. Yet that is broadly a comparable sum—around £6 billion—to the investment in the EV charging network we have been promised by 2030. Does the Minister think we are on track to have the right balance between investment in the supply chain and battery production capacity, and in the EV charging network. That network is where most drivers intersect with the system and it is the largest cause of frustration when it does not work or breaks down.

[Ms Ghani]

I do not think it gets any more positive from the SNP on this point. I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman welcomed the £4 billion investment and the more than 4,000 jobs, and the confidence we have in the advanced manufacturing sector in the UK; that was such a positive response to what this Government have been able to achieve. I was not aware of the Dundee point, but I will go away and look it up. So many people have been responsible for getting this project over the line and so many have been campaigning for gigafactories. In particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) has been campaigning for gigafactories for longer than I have been in Parliament, so huge thanks go to him and to everyone else who helped to get this project over the line.

On charging points, as the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) said in last week’s debate on the automotive sector, ChargeUK has committed to investing more than £6 billion in the development and operation of charging infrastructure before 2030. We heard in that debate that some colleagues felt the investment in their constituencies was not substantial enough. We need to make sure that as demand for EV vehicles grows—there has been much more demand and many more sales recently—the charging infrastructure stands up to that. As the Minister responsible for the automotive sector, I know we are doing everything we can to fulfil our part of the bargain, as it were, but we need to make sure that charging infrastructure is rolled out as fast as it can be. Substantial targets are being met and the Transport Minister is keen to take up constituency cases to make sure that the roll-out is fast as it can be.

G7 Summit

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and he can rest assured that I raised exactly that point with my colleagues in Hiroshima. He will be pleased, as I was, that there is language in the G7 communiqué that commits all G7 countries not to act at each other’s expense, and not to do so in a way that amounts to zero-sum competition, but he is absolutely right to identify the risk. Other countries acknowledge it, which is why the G7 communiqué is strong on this point. Going forward, we will see much greater co-operation between allies, so that we do not engage in protectionism, which is not something that will drive prosperity and growth in any of our countries.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

May I welcome what the Prime Minister said about China, particularly his intention to diversify our supply chains in areas such as critical minerals? The Prime Minister knows that China probably mines around 70% of all rare earth minerals and produces around 90% of all processed rare earth minerals globally. What investments is he planning to support to ensure capacity anywhere in the world to stop companies in the UK and elsewhere being required to buy from China?

[The Prime Minister]

We are strengthening investment here at home and increasingly playing our part in the critical minerals recycling chain. Recycling in particular, which is a key part of how we can ensure long-term sustainability, is an area where there is an enormous growth opportunity in the UK, and we are investing directly in that. As the right hon. Member will know, we have just signed critical minerals agreements with Japan and Australia, with more to come, as I continue conversations with other leaders. In particular, our new economic coercion unit, which is being established, will work to ensure that China cannot exert undue influence on countries that possess critical minerals, to ensure that they can trade those minerals freely and fairly.

Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

When the Government published their policy paper on revisions to the ministerial code on 27 May, it said that there would be “an enhanced process” for the initiation of investigations under the ministerial code, that the independent adviser could initiate his or her own investigations, that there would be a more specific reference to the adviser in the ministerial code, and that there would be a duty on Ministers to provide all the information necessary to allow the adviser to discharge his or her duties. However, it turns out that the Prime Minister is not offering potential candidates any enhanced powers, meaning that advisers will not be able to launch their own investigations, and that confirms the blocking of the expansion of powers by his predecessor. So it is a simple question: why are the Government reneging on their own policy statement of May this year, making it more difficult to appoint an independent adviser?

[Alex Burghart]

I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave a few moments ago. He seems terribly well informed, but he seems to have stopped short of reading Lord Geidt’s response to the changes in the terms of reference, where he said that

“this would be a workable scheme”.

Appointment of Lord Lebedev

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I thank the hon. Lady for asking that question. This is not about any one individual. The Opposition are seeking it to be about one individual who cannot answer for himself in this House, which is wrong. The Government are seeking to protect the system, so even if Lord Lebedev has said that he does not mind, it is not, with the greatest respect, only about him; this is about protecting the system, because the House of Lords Appointments Commission would not be able to function.

The Leader of the Opposition wrote to the commission earlier this month and received a reply a week or two ago, which I believe is in the public domain, in which it outlined the process and did not highlight any problems. The reality is that the Government are seeking to protect a system that has worked well for 22 years, so I ask the House to bear that in mind.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The Minister has said that the House of Lords Appointments Commission takes a variety of information from a variety of sources and organisations. That is perfectly reasonable. Is he suggesting, however, that the opinions or information of the intelligence services should somehow be of less importance than information from another body?

[Michael Ellis]

No, I am not suggesting anything of the sort. In fact, I have no personal knowledge of those from whom the commission obtains its information. It is for the commission, which has Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat and independent members, to make its own judgments, and we heard from the commission in the letter I mentioned, which I think was from Lord Bew.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

I shall heed the warning about moderation and good temper, which I am sure my SNP colleagues would say is in my DNA and runs through me like the writing in a stock of rock. Should I stray, I am sure that you would bring me back into line, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I was fascinated by the start of the Minister’s speech and I tried to intervene, but he would not take my multiple attempts to do so. When he got to his feet, he began by questioning the appropriateness of the Opposition holding such a debate on this topic. Literally minutes before he questioned how appropriate it was, Lord Lebedev said:

“There’s a war in Europe”—

hon. Members will recognise the phrase—

“Britain is facing the highest cost of living since the 1950s. And you choose to debate me based on no facts and pure innuendo.”

That was precisely the Minister’s opening gambit, which prompts the question: did he write the Minister’s speech or did the Minister write his tweet?

That assertion was absurd, because we have come to learn, often through painful experience in this place, that when this Government and this Prime Minister assure us that there is nothing to see, it is wise to keep looking. That is why we fully support the motion and why, when the House divides, we will vote for the Government to hand over all documents, all minutes of meetings and all electronic communications containing or relating to the advice that they received about the appointment of Evgeny Lebedev to the House of Lords.

I reiterate in the strongest possible terms that today’s debate is absolutely not about being Russophobic, as the Minister would shamefully have us believe. He said that to try to throw up a smokescreen cover for his beleaguered Prime Minister, and it does the Prime Minister and this House no service whatever to try to suggest otherwise. As has been said many, many times in this Chamber, our fight is not with the ordinary Russian citizen, but with Putin, his political leadership in the Kremlin and his friends, including the oligarch billionaires who have plundered Russia’s wealth and resources and shipped them overseas, all too often to the UK and the City of London. Once they were in the UK, those billionaire oligarchs found many people in business and politics who, in return for their slice of the cake, were only too willing to facilitate the kleptocracy by hiding the oligarchs’ plunder for them while providing them with what they desired most: a cloak of respectability.

The UK’s willingness to welcome vast amounts of Russian money with very few questions asked about the source of that wealth means that there are now many Russians with close links to Putin who are very well integrated into the UK and who simply, because of that enormous wealth, have attained significant influence among the UK’s business, social and political elites.

Since this Prime Minister came into office in 2019, £2.3 million of Russian-linked cash has been funnelled directly into the Conservative party. That has happened to such an extent that even the Intelligence and Security Committee raised serious concerns about undue influence being sought and, indeed, gained by friends of President Putin with the UK governing party.

That influence of dirty Russian money has not gone unnoticed abroad. Professor Sadiq Isah Radda, the most senior adviser to Nigeria’s President on all matters of anti-corruption, described London as

“the most notorious safe haven for looted funds in the world today”.

That is where we currently are in the world standings.

In January this year, as Putin prepared to invade Ukraine, the Centre for American Progress warned the City of London that

“uprooting Kremlin-linked oligarchs will be a challenge given the close ties between Russian money and the United Kingdom’s ruling Conservative party, the press, and its real estate and financial industry”.

It was always going to be the case that when Putin finally did unleash his illegal war in Ukraine, the UK would be forced to look at our role and how we have facilitated his gangster regime.

[Stewart Hosie]

My hon. Friend will have noticed that the Minister described the motion as a misuse of powers, implied that it would impede the Prime Minister in his constitutional role and argued that it is about a witch hunt against a single person. Is the truth not that the motion is about allowing us to understand whether or not the process of appointment has been corrupted? As my hon. Friend has mentioned Russian money, can he throw some light on why the Minister has doubled down on those ridiculous arguments?

[Brendan O’Hara]

Perhaps the Minister could reply for himself. I have no idea why he would double down on those ridiculous arguments.

My right hon. Friend is right that this is not about an individual. It is about a corruption of process, and that was always going to lead us to a re-examination of the Prime Minister’s decision to send Evgeny Lebedev to the House of Lords for philanthropy and services to the media, as he put it. As we have heard, Mr Lebedev is a Russian businessman who derives his enormous wealth from his father, Alexander Lebedev, a former London-based KGB spy turned oligarch who still has investments in illegally occupied Crimea. At the start of this month, The New York Times said of Evgeny:

“Nobody is a better example of the cozy ties between Russians and the establishment than Mr. Lebedev.”

Just how cosy that relationship is can be seen from the fact that the British Prime Minister personally campaigned for a peerage to turn plain old Evgeny into Baron Lebedev, of Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and of Siberia in the Russian Federation, for the rest of his life.

I could go on about the absurdity of the House of Lords—the absurdity of a so-called democratic Parliament having an unelected upper Chamber into which family chieftains, high-ranking clerics of one denomination, failed and retired politicians and those with deep pockets who are prepared to bankroll a political party are thrust—but I will resist.

Ukraine

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend very much; he is absolutely right to draw attention to defence spending. It is great that the German Chancellor also now sees the importance of that. For a long time, my hon. Friend and I have been campaigning for Germany to shoulder more of the cost of defence in Europe, and that is a good thing. We have seen massive increases in our defence spending, but we want to make sure it is targeted on things such as tackling cyber and disinformation and all the modern forms of warfare in which Putin specialises.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I welcome the sanctions announced today on the five banks and the three named individuals. However, the Prime Minister will be well aware that there are many, many oligarchs who would, at face value, have huge wealth and huge assets in their own names, but that that wealth and those assets are absolutely in the gift of the Russian state and at the beck and call of the Russian state. Will he confirm that the sanctions we will be discussing and agreeing later today intend to ensure that those trusted custodians of Russian state money are able to be sanctioned in the way the three individuals named today are being sanctioned?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. We will be able to sanction oligarchs, associates of President Putin and companies of strategic importance to the Kremlin.

Sue Gray Report

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Member is entirely right about the suffering of people with learning disabilities, and indeed all vulnerable groups who were exposed to lockdowns for long periods. That is why, actually, we worked so hard to make sure that we could get this country out of lockdown and keep it out of lockdown, and that was our objective.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I do not need to wait for the full Sue Gray report, because this one tells me one important fact: there were a heck of a lot of parties. At which point during this catalogue of frivolity, while the Prime Minister was clearing last night’s empty wine bottles off his desk before settling down to work the following afternoon, did he conclude that having one rule for him and another for the general public was undermining his own health messaging and costing people’s lives?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is misrepresenting what Sue Gray says. He is also, perhaps inadvertently, completely mispresenting what happened.

Ukraine

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend very much, and I go back to the answer I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). I know that, emotionally, many people will want to commit NATO troops to the defence of Ukraine. We have UK troops there now, and members of the Ranger Regiment are going to supplement those we already have.

I have to say that no member of NATO is currently willing to deploy in Ukraine in large numbers to fight Russian aggression in the way that my hon. Friend suggests. Indeed, we have to beware of doing things that would constitute a pretext for Putin to invade. We have to calculate and calibrate what we do very carefully, and I think that the right approach is to build a strong package of economic sanctions, continue to supply defensive weaponry and do all the other things that we are doing.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister said that we have already declassified compelling intelligence exposing Russian intent and that

“we will continue to disclose any Russian use of…false flag operations or disinformation.”

How much of that declassified information will be made fully public so as to blunt or halt the spread of Russian disinformation by letting the people who see it know that it is false before they decide to press the “share” or “send” button?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. It is very important that people in Ukraine and around the world should be able to trust the information that we are giving out. I have no doubt that the intelligence that we shared about the coup attempt—or the people conspiring against the regime—in Kyiv was right, but we will divulge as much of our sourcing as we can without compromising our intelligence sources.

Police Powers to Suspend Driving Licences

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in the debate. This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I remind Members that they are advised by the House to have a covid lateral flow test before coming on to the estate. Could Members please give each other and staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room?

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 548682, relating to police powers to suspend driving licences.

It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship Mr Hosie. As a member of the Petitions Committee, it is an honour to open the debate. The e-petition is about Tom’s law and was created by Christina Worsfold, Tom McConnachie’s partner. The petition closed on 25 March 2021 with 104,868 signatures. It states:

“We want police officers to be able to provide a suspension notice from the moment an offender is caught drink, drug or dangerous driving until they appear in court. It would then be for the Judge to decide whether a ban continues or they are able to continue to drive again… With Tom's Law we want police officers to be able to issue a suspension notice to an offender when arrested at the Road side to stop them from driving until they attend court to protect other road users.”

I met Christina and Charlotte McConnachie, Tom’s mother, who told me of the absolutely tragic circumstances of Tom’s death., Charlotte, Christina and Christina’s mother, Sandra, are in the Public Gallery this evening. Christina and Charlotte told me that at 3 am on 24 February 2019, Tom, aged 34, was killed in a hit-and-run incident on Budshead Road in Plymouth, Devon, by a drink driver who left Tom fatally injured in the road. The driver continued his journey to Okehampton, approximately 53 miles away, where he set fire to the vehicle to destroy the evidence.

Tom was returning from a night out with friends to celebrate the forthcoming wedding in August 2019 of one of the friends, at which Tom was to be a groomsman. Tom had taken a taxi home in the early hours of the morning and was hit by Lewis Seamen, who was driving a black Kia Rio car, which he had borrowed from a friend in order to pick up this friend’s partner. The taxi driver said that he helped Tom—who he described as “happy drunk”—out of his taxi and shook hands with him. When he got back in his car, he saw Tom walking along the nearby pavement. He then saw Tom standing in the middle of the road with his arms raised high. That is when he saw a black car hit Tom. The taxi driver got out of his car to help Tom and called 999.

A witness who was out running along Budshead Road said that he saw a man talking to a taxi driver before the taxi started to pull away. Then, a car travelling at around 30 mph with high revs came from behind the runner and hit the man, who was knocked 10 or 12 feet down the road. The runner stopped to help the injured man. The police officer who gave evidence at the inquest into Tom’s death, which was held on 11 February 2021, said that the police reconstruction of the fatal collision showed that the car that hit Tom was travelling at at least 29 mph and that the driver, Mr Seaman, may have been using a mobile phone, although the police officer could not confirm or validate this.

Tom was taken to Derriford Hospital, where tragically he died from serious head injuries shortly after being admitted. Tom was much loved in his community. He was an accomplished footballer and a Liverpool football club supporter. Everyone who had the privilege to meet Tom soon became friends with him.

On 6 January 2020, Mr Seaman pleaded guilty to drink-driving, failing to stop, driving without insurance and perverting the course of justice after a collision, but not guilty to failing to report, because he attended a police station at about 11 am on 24 February 2019, approximately seven hours after Tom had been hit. Mr Seaman was not charged with causing death by dangerous driving or careless driving. In his defence, Mr Seaman said that he had drunk three cans of lager and two single whiskies at about 9 pm on 23 February. He thought he was fit to drive in the early hours of 24 February. Mr Seaman claimed that his view of the road was hampered by fog, but other witnesses at the scene who provided statements that were read out at Tom’s inquest said that the view was clear.

On 31 January 2020, in Plymouth Crown court, Mr Seaman was sentenced by Judge Paul Darlow to 10 months’ imprisonment and a driving ban of three years and five months, with an extended retest condition. The court heard that a doctor had concluded that the level of alcohol in Seaman’s system

“would have been such that it would have impaired his ability to safely drive”,

but added:

“It cannot be said that it (the level of alcohol) contributed to Mr McConnachie’s death.”

Judge Darlow said:

“I can tell you straight off that if there was a suggestion on any sensible and fair basis upon which it could be said the amount of alcohol had contributed in any way, the outcome would have been entirely different.”

He said to Mr Seaman:

“The surest thing about this case is that you will have to live with the consequences of your actions and that is something that will not go away when you have served your prison sentence.”

Mr Seaman should have served half the sentence. In fact, however, he only served three months and three weeks. Tom’s family believe that Tom’s life was worth so much more than 10 months, so much more than five months. and so much more than three months and three weeks. Tom’s family appealed against the 10-month sentence under the Government’s unduly lenient sentence scheme, but a single judge sitting in chambers decided that there were no new grounds to put the case forward to the Court of Appeal to reconsider the sentence.

Tom’s family found it extremely distressing and concerning that the offender was allowed to continue to drive from 24 February 2019 until he was eventually banned by a judge at the Crown court hearing 11 months later. They are asking for police to be given powers to suspend a driver’s licence when the suspect provides a positive drink or drugs test over the legal limit until that suspect attends court, when the judge can decide whether the driving ban will continue.

Tom’s family told me that it was disclosed at the Crown court hearing that Mr Seaman had previous drink-driving offences. He had been banned for 18 months, which was subsequently reduced to 10 months after he completed a driver awareness course. Tom’s family believe that Mr Seaman had not learned from his previous driving ban and that being able to drive is not a human right, but a privilege. If someone abuses that privilege, it should be taken away from day one.

Tom’s family told me that many families in the same situation, where an offender has been allowed to drive while an investigation is ongoing, have pledged their support. They have also been contacted by police officers from across the UK who support Tom’s law because of the need to protect the public and save lives. Tom’s family want laws regarding driving offences to be toughened, and they want zero tolerance. They have worked closely with the Saltern family, who are campaigning for Ryan’s law. I had the privilege to open the debate on Ryan’s law, on behalf of the Petitions Committee, in this Chamber on 15 November 2021.

Tom’s family want to thank all the people who tried to help Tom: the taxi driver, the runner who gave Tom CPR at the scene, the police, the paramedics, and the staff at Derriford Hospital. They extend their sincere gratitude to SCARD, the Support and Care After Road Death and Injury charity.

The Department for Transport produced a UK Government response to the petition on 11 February 2021. It stated that,

“Turning to the suggestion that in certain circumstances a driving ban should be imposed pending investigation and trial, under the Bail Act 1976, the police can impose bail conditions for particular purposes, one of which is to ensure there is no further offence committed while on bail. A driving ban as a condition of police bail may be appropriate for some cases. Decisions on when to use these powers are operational matters for the police, and the rights of a defendant, not yet convicted, and the potential benefits to public safety from reducing the risk of further offences have to be balanced.”

I will be grateful if the Minister answers some questions about the current law, and about statistics concerning pre-charge bail and released under investigation—known as RUI. How many alleged suspects have been released on pre-charge bail from all police forces since 2017 for the following periods: up to 28 days; 29 days to three months; three months to six months; six months to 12 months; and over 12 months? How many alleged suspects, released on pre-charge bail for the periods I referred to, have had a driving ban imposed as a condition of that bail? How many alleged suspects have been released on RUI for the periods I referred to? Has RUI been successful in its aim of reducing the number of alleged suspects being released repeatedly on bail? Has RUI been overused by overstretched police forces so that complex cases are shelved because simpler cases have a better prospect of conviction, with the unintended consequence that alleged victims and suspects do not receive regular case updates, and so are left in limbo for months or years?

I hope the Minister has listened this evening to the requests of the petitioner. Will she consider introducing the power for police to immediately suspend a suspect’s driving licence in the circumstances set out in Tom’s law? Finally, will she meet Christina and Tom’s family to discuss the matter further? Tom’s family are still seeking justice.

Access to Archives

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Chris Evans]

On a point of order, Mr Hosie. I apologise to the House that I failed to declare my interests as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on archives and history, and as an author. I should have done so at the beginning of the debate.

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

That is now on the record, and I am sure that everyone will be content with that.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her repeated question, but she well knows that successive Governments, from both sides of the House, do not publish legal advice, and there is a good reason for that. But she can be assured that this Government are very focused on protecting the human rights of all, and that includes those who have been subject to personation, where their votes have been taken by someone else. That is also a human right that we seek to protect, and we will continue to do so.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

Some 90% of the public think that polling station voting is safe from fraud and abuse, and they are right to think that. Personation, which is the only problem the voter ID provisions of the Elections Bill are designed to address, resulted in a single conviction in 2016, 2017 and 2019, and zero convictions in 2018. Given that up to 3.5 million people may not have suitable ID and that the Government’s pilots confirmed that up to 324,000 people would be denied a vote in a Great Britain election, let me ask the simple question: why are this Government prepared to embark on voter suppression on an industrial scale?

[Michael Ellis]

I am surprised by the right hon. Gentleman, because it is not just a question of convictions: attempts to commit crimes are also wrongs. We have to focus on reducing the criminality in this area. It is also about voters having confidence that they are not going to be subject to personation and confidence to go and vote because they know there is no interference in the voting system. Some 66%—two thirds and more—of those questioned said that they would like to see increased security around voting. In this day and age, that is increasingly important, and the right hon. Gentleman ought to recognise that, too.

[Stewart Hosie]

On the matter of confidence, the House of Commons Library has rather helpfully told us that half the public think there is inadequate regulation of political party spending and that only 14% think there is transparency around it. The Paymaster General knows perfectly well that there have been concerns about the influence of dark money in the UK electoral system for many years. Why could it be that this Government are planning to suppress the right of ordinary people to vote rather than tackle the real problem of dark money buying influence in the democratic process?

[Michael Ellis]

These bold assertions have no basis in evidence or reality and have a tendency to do exactly what the right hon. Gentleman claims to seek to avoid, which is to suppress votes. He wishes to focus on a lack of regulation in respect of voting confidence. We seek—our manifesto commitment on this has been, and will continue to be, followed through on—to protect the voting system, and we do that in the same way as has happened in all the countries I have mentioned: by increasing confidence in the system.