Voter ID Pilot Schemes

Tommy Sheppard Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

We have a real problem in this country with democratic participation and engagement. At the last general election, 14.6 million people who were registered and entitled to vote did not do so. In all parts of the country, at every local election we do not have a majority of those who are entitled to vote taking part in the election. In other words, our democracy hangs by these very shoogly nails, and we all ought to be extremely concerned about the situation. It therefore bewilders me that in the midst of all the things we need to do, the Government are committing so much concern and energy to this particular issue, which as far I can see has not been demonstrated to be a problem at all.

As others have said, we are talking about 28 alleged cases of personation last year—one case for every 1.6 million people who voted.

[Mr Lord]

With the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tommy Sheppard]

I am afraid I do not have time.

That seems to be a problem so marginal as not to require Government attention. We also know that the public are not concerned: a survey released today by the Electoral Reform Society showed electoral fraud at the very bottom of a list of potential concerns the public have about the voting system

[Dr Poulter]

With the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tommy Sheppard]

I am sorry, but I will not take interventions because we are short on time.

Unlike in Northern Ireland, where there was a serious problem, the instances alleged appear to be sporadic and individual rather than as a result of any organised campaign to scam an election—I have yet to see any evidence that the latter is the case. Given that, why are the Government so concerned and being egged on by some members of the governing party, for whom this seems to have become something of an obsession? Indeed, I note that someone recently put in a freedom of information request to the Human Tissue Authority, which regulates dead bodies, to ask what information it has about electoral fraud, as if we are looking at zombie voters coming to influence the situation.

As the evidence is not there that this is a huge problem that needs to be tackled, there is a case in what the Opposition are saying. In fact, the motivation is party political, with people seeking a party advantage. It is the case, is it not, that photo identification is less likely to be held by people who are unemployed, people who earn low incomes, black and minority ethnic groups, people with disabilities and migrant communities? All of those people have one thing in common: they are less likely to vote for the Conservative party. It seems to me that, as the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Lord) said, potentially very few votes influence the outcome of an election, if photo ID achieves the suppression of participation by voters in those categories—

[Chris Green]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tommy Sheppard]

I am sorry, but I have only 60 seconds left.

There is a severe problem here. We need to look seriously at the results of the pilot. I would like the Minister to respond. It will not be good enough if all the Electoral Commission does is speak to the returning officers in those five areas and finds out who voted and who was turned away; we need to know much more than that. We need the breakdown of who was turned away and what their characteristics are, to see whether there are any particular trends. More importantly, we need to know not just who was turned away but who never turned up in the first place. People have suggested that there was no effect on turnout, but surely that was in part because there was a publicity campaign in those five areas, so people will have known that if they did not have photo ID, there probably was not much point in going to the polling station. Clear scientific research needs to be undertaken to find out whether that was the case before there is a further roll-out.

I plead with the Cabinet Office and the Minister to understand that there are much greater priorities in improving our electoral system than this. It is surely time, in the 21st century, that 16 and 17-year-olds should be able to vote. It is surely time to have automatic registration. And it is surely time that we piloted online voting, where there would be absolute security in who votes and absolute guarantees against personation and fraud.