Conduct of Elections

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[David Mundell (in the Chair)]

I will call Wendy Chamberlain to move the motion and then call the Minister to respond. As is the convention in 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the conduct of elections.

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. We are approaching a general election at some point this year, or maybe next, and it will not be a snap general election. A lot has happened since the previous one in December 2019, and the country has experienced a number of events since then, but the intention of this debate is to note that a number of changes to our democracy will be fully tested for the first time in a general election since 2019. It is worth while assessing whether those changes have improved our democratic systems, or whether they are tools for the current Government to improve their position.

In the 2019 Conservative manifesto the Government committed to a number of changes, including the scrapping of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, updating and equalising boundaries through the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020, and maintaining first past the post. I wonder whether the former vice-chairman of the Conservative party and now Reform MP, the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), agrees with that, given that he is now a member of a party that is committed to electoral reform and has signed up to the Make Votes Matter good systems agreement. It is always worth noting that the only other country in Europe that has the first-past-the-post system is Belarus.

In additional, the Government committed to maintaining the voting age of 18, introducing voter ID, and restricting postal vote harvesting and foreign interference in elections. It is a pity they have been slow to move on that issue when it comes to party finances. They also committed to preventing that intimidation of candidates and voters, and I am sure we can all agree with that.

The Government also committed to introducing a constitution, democracy and rights commission within the first year of the new Parliament. In December 2020, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee held oral evidence sessions on the subject of a commission but, other than independent reviews of administrative law and the Human Rights Act 1998, the reports of which have resulted in further consultations, there is no commission.

Indeed, the Constitution Unit has suggested that the Government’s failure on that manifesto commitment is because the underlying goal is to bolster their position and weaken parliamentary and judicial checks, and that a more fragmented review process may help to obscure the combined effort of any reforms and divide opponents. I hope the Minister will provide clarity on the future of the commission and whether it will come into being before the election.

As MPs, when people come to us for assistance, the first thing we do is check that they are our constituents. We do that by finding out where they live. I am sure the vast majority of MPs point out on their standard automated acknowledgment that the person who has emailed must be a constituent in order to get assistance. It is important to note that constituencies are not organised on that basis, but on the number of registered voters within them.

The Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020 set a tolerance of 5% of the electoral quota to produce what the Government insist are equal constituencies, to ensure that each vote applies equally. That has resulted in huge differences in the constituencies to be fought in the upcoming general election. Only 55 of the 533 English constituencies remain unchanged by boundaries. The geographical boundaries have shifted and the names of some of the new constituencies are a mouthful, linking areas that are not necessarily linked in other obvious, definable ways.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. She brings many things to Westminster Hall and the Chamber that are of great interest to us all, and I thank her for giving me the chance to intervene. The changes in the 2020 Act apply to the United Kingdom parliamentary elections, police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales, and local elections in England. Some provisions apply to Northern Ireland Assembly elections and local elections. Does the hon. Lady agree that all provisions of the Act should apply to all elections in all regions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

The hon. Member always brings an additional dimension to debates. From a democratic perspective, it is important that devolution is respected where it exists. It is also important to recognise that the Welsh and Scottish Governments did not provide legislative consent to the Elections Act 2022 and are looking to legislate themselves. I want to see consistency across our electoral systems in the UK. As a Scottish MP, I always enjoy speaking to voters, regardless of the election, and understanding how clever and able they are. They know exactly what to do with the different electoral systems for the different institutions.

I want to touch on the impact of overseas voters. The legislation on overseas voters means that UK nationals who live overseas are no longer affected by the rule saying that if they have lived overseas for more than 15 years, they cannot vote. One challenge with that change is that we do not know where overseas voters are likely to vote. In many cases, local authorities do not keep electoral registers that go back more than 15 years, and we are basing the estimates on where people assure us they lived previously. We have a 5% rule, which makes each vote count equally in equally sized constituencies, and the change introduces an unknown number of people to a number of constituencies. Will the Minister talk about what the Government have done to ensure that overseas voters are registered in the right place? What are the estimates for the numbers of people registered?

The Minister will be pleased to know that I am not about to talk at length about first past the post—as a Liberal Democrat, that is something I always do—but it is worth pointing out that trust in politics is at an all-time low, and that a system that is arguably unable to deliver fair votes and make everyone’s vote count is unlikely to improve that situation. In my constituency, only two votes separated the Liberal Democrats and the SNP in the 2017 general election—I should add that I was not then the Liberal Democrats’ candidate—and many more constituents voted for someone other than the winner. That is what marginal seats mean, and it is important that we recognise that.

Unlock Democracy’s recent report, “Register Every Voter”, illustrates some of the challenges that the Government’s approach has produced in terms of whether electoral registers support our democracy. The report evaluated registers on the basis of four considerations: register completeness is

“the extent to which every person who is entitled to be registered, is registered”;

register accuracy

“can be usefully defined as the extent to which there are no false entries on the electoral registers”;

register equity

“refers to the extent to which there is an even distribution in the completeness of the electoral register across educational, socio-demographic, ethnic, gendered or other groups”;

and administrative robustness means that electoral registration processes

“must be deliverable without errors which can lead to citizens not being able to vote or the trust in the system being undermined. This requires sufficient staffing, resource and capacity.”

The report estimates that up to 8 million people are missing from the electoral register or are not correctly registered to vote. Unsurprisingly, it finds:

“Those who were under registered were more likely to be in urban areas…more mobile; private renters; younger; from Asian, Black, Mixed or ‘other’ ethnic backgrounds; non-UK nationals; from lower socio-economic groups and with lower qualifications”.

I would argue that those are exactly the people who need good politics and good support from locally elected representatives.

Even more concerning is the fact that the number of people registering to vote is falling. As MPs, that should concern us all. An increase in the UK population of 6% since 2011 has not been reflected in voter registration. I accept that registration usually increases at the time of a general election—we have not had one of those for a while—but the overall trend is worrying. Will the Minister indicate what the Government are intending to do about that? Will the Government seriously consider automatic voter registration, which is used by half of the world’s countries?

Voter identification requirements may also be playing their part. In an urgent question last September I highlighted the Electoral Commission’s report that warned that disabled people and the unemployed find it harder to show accepted voter ID, as do younger people and people from ethnic minorities. It also reported that on average a higher proportion of people were turned away in more deprived areas, compared with less deprived areas. The Local Government Information Unit reported that approximately 14,000 voters were not given a ballot paper because they could not show an accepted form of ID, and significantly more were deterred from voting because of the ID requirement.

[Jim Shannon]

Northern Ireland has had voter ID for a number of years—this is not a criticism; I am trying to be positive—and it has been successful. I think it is a matter of what the Government can do to help people to get their IDs. There is a proactive campaign in Northern Ireland to make that happen. I say genuinely, constructively and honestly that voter ID in Northern Ireland has worked because the Government went overboard to make it work.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

The hon. Member and I rarely disagree and we can find points of consensus. One thing that Northern Ireland has done very well is that it has been much more proactive in getting people registered to vote, working in schools and elsewhere, which means that in some respects voter ID is less of an issue because people have been encouraged to vote and have the right ID at an early stage. Having one and not the other makes things much more difficult for people. If people do not have voter ID or acceptable voter ID, it can suggest that the Government are comfortable with the idea that those people are not in a position to be able to vote.

The Commons Library briefing on voter ID states that 90% of voters were likely to think that voting was “safe” after last year’s local elections in England, but that pattern was unchanged since before voter ID was introduced, so introducing voter ID has made no difference to public perception of the safety of voting. The Government response to the Electoral Commission report in November last year rejected a number of the commission’s recommendations that arose from the report. Given that the Minister was responsible for that response, will he advise what additional measures will be available for the GE, particularly for groups such as disabled people, to ensure that those who are entitled to vote can?

I have already mentioned the Elections Act 2022 in response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Strangford. It included measures to address the impact of candidate and voter intimidation—I am sure we all want to see less of that, particularly when MP security and safety has been back in the public eye and discussed in recent weeks—but it is fair to say that those elements of the Act did not constitute the areas of debate when the Bill made its passage through Parliament. In addition to voter ID, the concerns expressed by other parties, including my own, were about finance and the independence of the Electoral Commission.

It is accepted that the next election will be the most expensive ever, and not just because of recent high inflation levels. We know who that will disproportionately benefit: the current party of Government, the Conservatives. The Electoral Commission said in November that it saw no reason to substantially raise the spending limits. We are seeing reporting on huge increases in literature that is being delivered—as a Liberal Democrat, I deliver a lot of leaflets—and also in terms of social media. When we look at disinformation it is really important that we get things right. The data rules that are changing are also part of the challenge. Simply put, the changes reward the biggest pockets. Social media and other means of communicating with voters are important, but I believe that being out on the doorsteps and speaking to voters is most effective, particularly from the trust perspective.

In the last couple of weeks there has been a lot of discussion about the Government’s donations, particularly from their donor Frank Hester. The Government have said that his comments were wrong and racist, but have not ruled out accepting future donations and, importantly, have not ruled out granting a peerage to Mr Hester—something that seems to happen quite a lot with Conservative donors. I hope the Minister can find reassure us on that.

Does the Minister generally agree that big money is potentially a further drain on public trust in politics, and that a cap on political donations would help with that? It would also level the playing field. Myself and parliamentarians from smaller parties such as the SNP and Plaid Cymru would benefit, and I would argue that that is not a bad thing because plurality of opinion is important. We have created a system in which two parties are in the lead, and nothing changes.

To conclude, it is quite clear that there has been a number of changes since 2019, and we will see at the general election whether the fears that I expressed this morning are going to be upheld or the Conservatives have made changes that do not have such an impact. Despite all the arguable rigging of the rules, all the polls currently suggest that the changes the Conservatives have made will not help them now, nor in October, November, December or even January. If they genuinely believe in the changes they have made to our democracy, they should call a general election now.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I am grateful to the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for instigating this debate. The topic set out on the Order Paper is “the conduct of elections”, which is a wide canvas. We had no reference to any specific points the hon. Lady was going to draw the House’s attention to, so I am working from manuscript notes based on my own knowledge as elections Minister.

Let me shoot stone-cold dead two foxes that the hon. Lady has tried to set running round Westminster Hall this morning. First, she said that she thought the Elections Act 2022 and subsequent guidance was—I quote directly —“a tool of the current Government to improve their own position.” It is absolutely not. I say gently to her that she cannot turn around in good faith and in all conscience and say that our electorates need to have faith and confidence in the robustness, resilience, honesty, transparency and integrity of the system, and then say, in almost the juxtaposed breath, that the Government were trying to rig the rules in their favour.

If the hon. Lady does not believe me, I ask her to look at the evidence and the facts. I suggest to the House that the results of last year’s local elections demonstrate beyond peradventure that even if they had been planned to improve the position of the Government, the plan did not work. They were not results that my party welcomed. I am afraid that the hon. Lady’s fox is not only shot but buried on that point. I take her point entirely that the public need to have faith in the system, and I politely suggest to her that it is our job as parliamentarians, along with our colleagues across the local government sector, to ensure that the public have that. Her opening remarks did not help in that important endeavour.

The second fox I want to shoot and butcher is that we are in some way undermining the independence of the Electoral Commission. The commission’s independence is sacrosanct. The chairman and the chief executive of the commission know that, and we work well and closely together. I made that point very clearly on the Floor of the House when I made my statement. We have to have faith and confidence in the robust independence of the commission, and that is a ditch I will die in to defend.

The hon. Lady raised a number of other issues. She described almost as some sort of elections equivalent of the Russian revolution our revocation of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. It was not an ancient piece of UK constitutional architecture; it was always envisaged to be a temporary piece of legislation, wisely brought in by the then coalition partners—the coalition of which the hon. Lady’s party was a key and important part—to provide stability and confidence for the markets and the electorate that there was a secure and stable Government that, having inherited an absolute horror show of a financial legacy from the Labour party, would take difficult decisions to restore the nation’s finances. The Act was always envisaged to be temporary; it is no longer required. It is for no other reason that it was revoked.

The hon. Lady spoke about the boundary reforms, which were long overdue. She will remember, although it was before her time and mine, that there was a bit of horse-trading between my party and hers and we had a referendum on changing the first-past-the-post system. My side won and her side lost, but the Liberals seem to be very poor losers and, rather like the SNP, who always try to resurrect the question of an independence referendum, they keep picking away at the scab of first past the post. I am not entirely sure that the electorate are with them on that, given the results of the referendum that was held on changing the voting system.

The Boundary Commission review of parliamentary seats was long overdue. We know full well that that will now take place every eight years, so the next review will be required to report by 2031 and will be based on the registers as at December 2028. It is about time we had that as part of an iterative process, to ensure that as populations grow and shrink, and new housing development comes on stream, our parliamentary boundaries broadly reflect an equal number of constituents to ensure that it really is one Member, one vote, and all of us are equal in this House.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Will the Minister give way?

[Simon Hoare]

I might in a moment, but the hon. Lady covered a lot of ground and I want to give respect to her by covering the very serious and sensible points that she made.

On voter ID, the underpinning of the Act and the subsequent statutory instruments that we have brought forward is that we cannot rest on our laurels. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that in broad terms, the way our elections have been conducted in this country has been robust and fair, and everyone—both those who have won and, more importantly, those who have lost—has accepted the results, but I do not think we can rest on our laurels. She will know, as I do, that we are living in a changing world, in which western democratic principles are under acute pressure, and the rise of populism and social media brings challenges that our forefathers had not foreseen. To that purpose, we reflected on, reviewed and updated the rules that govern our electoral processes, in order to ensure that they are fit for purpose and demonstrably capable of being changed and reformed.

There is a very long list of qualifying documentation for voter ID, and 99% of all voters have at least one form of acceptable ID, and many have more. There is also the voter authority certificate, which is free and lasts for three years. That meets the needs of the 1% of the population who do not have an acceptable form of ID. We have a list, which is quite long, but it is not carved in tablets of stone. I hope the hon. Lady will welcome my saying that this is an iterative and organic process: as technologies change and new forms of ID come on board, Government will of course respond. We reviewed the situation post the local elections of 2023 and we will have to do a quick review post the coming elections in May 2024. Tweaks could easily be made, if required, in preparation for the general election later this year. I think that is the right way to go.

Turnout for the local elections in 2023 was broadly commensurate with that in previous years. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place, rightly referenced the fact that within boundaries of the United Kingdom, voter identification has been an accepted part of the electoral landscape in Northern Ireland—again, with no demonstrable negative impact on turnout.

The hon. Member for North East Fife and I share an absolute keenness—as do the Government, the Electoral Commission and local government—to maximise our attention to what all the survey work has pointed to, which is driving up registration and participation of those we might colloquially describe as hard-to-reach groups. That can be students, the very elderly, people from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, or those with disabilities—in particular disabilities that make it a challenge to come into new spaces, or to meet and interact with new people.

We take this matter absolutely seriously and I want to put it clearly on the record that we want to make sure that anybody and everybody who is eligible to vote in any electoral event has the right to do so, and that if they wish to exercise that right they must be free to do so. We are deploying the strength and power of gov.uk, working with the commission, turbocharging the engines of local government communication, and reaching out to faith groups, disability groups and the voluntary sector. We are focused, Exocet-like, on driving up registration in those communities, as well as participation, with a greater awareness of voter ID. That is key and it is right. If the hon. Lady and I agree possibly on nothing else in this debate, I hope that she will welcome that.

On overseas votes, the hon. Lady repeated a line that is the third fox that I need to shoot in response to her remarks. A qualifying overseas voter cannot just choose willy-nilly which constituency to register in. I appreciate that sitting in the ivory tower of Marsham Street, one can sometimes seem slightly caught between theory and practice, but on Monday I visited a local authority election office, where I completed some of the applications processing—I did it all fairly and was supervised! We admitted two applications, but one was not sufficient because the applicant said they had been on the paper register but that had not been digitalised. Such applications are then put into the “pending” box and further proof of ID is required to prove where the individual, if qualifying, lived in that constituency and therefore that they have a right to vote there. I know that some feared that parties would organise themselves to motivate people to apply to vote in their most marginal seats, but one has to demonstrate without any form of a doubt that they have a link to that last constituency. That is important.

The hon. Lady asked what I thought the numbers may be. We assess that the potential quantum, in totality —including those already qualifying to be overseas voters under the old 15-year rule—to be about 3 million.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I want to make it clear for the record that that was not a third fox. I was not suggesting in any way that there would not be robust processes in place for people to register in a particular seat. I was asking about the numbers, because I think the Minister must accept that if we are making an estimate of 3 million, we cannot say exactly where those 3 million will be, and the numbers will alter the overall electoral register in each affected constituency.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Lady makes a good and clear point. Clearly, when it came to the subsequent boundary review—at a time when, one would have to presume, those who had qualified would have already taken up and exercised that right—those who were reviewing our parliamentary boundaries would take those numbers into account. That is the one number that will never move, because one will not be able to change a historical link to a constituency.

The hon. Lady made an important point about devolution and different settlements. I assure her that while there are differentials between the nations of the United Kingdom, the four of us who are charged ministerially with dealing with elections, and the Northern Ireland Office, work closely together to ensure that parity can be delivered as and when it can, and when it is deemed to be desirable, and to try to maximise the points that the hon. Lady talked about—namely, simplicity and transparency across these islands.

The hon. Lady mentioned automatic voter registration. Again, that is something that any Government would keep under review. We have decided that individual registration is the best way. We all talk about rights, but sometimes we do not talk about responsibilities, and I actually think that that individual motivation to register—deciding to go on the electoral register, obviously without being forced to vote—begins a contract between the young qualifying adult and the state in all its manifestations.

This has been a fascinating debate, which we now draw to a conclusion. I am grateful to the hon. Member for North East Fife. I just hope that I have assured her on the two key charges that she levied against us: the commission’s independence is clear and without challenge; and we are in no way trying to gerrymander. The Conservative party is the oldest political party in the world. We have always extended and widened the franchise, and that is a historical tradition that we intend to continue.

Question put and agreed to.

Voter Identification Scheme

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to make a statement on the voter identification scheme.

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

We were pleased and encouraged by the first roll-out of voter identification at the local elections in England in May. The data gathered in polling stations showed that the vast majority of electors—99.75%—were able to cast their vote successfully and adapted well to the roll-out of the changes. We are grateful to local authorities and other partners for their work to deliver the change in requirements.

The Government committed in legislation to conduct an evaluation of the implementation of voter identification at the local elections in May and at the next two UK parliamentary general elections. Our intention is that the first of those reports, evaluating the implementation at May’s local elections, will be published in November 2023. Yesterday the Government published two documents that demonstrate that we are making clear progress with the evaluation, and that provide more detail on the evidence upon which it will be based. We are determined to ensure that we fully understand how the policy has operated in practice, what has gone well, and any ideas for improvement.

There are few tasks more important in public life than maintaining the integrity of our democratic processes and the British public’s trust in them. We are not just committed to doing so; we are acting to achieve that. The Government have taken seriously the important recommendations made by the independent Electoral Commission, by international electoral observers and by Sir Eric Pickles—now Lord Pickles—in his report into electoral fraud, and we have been committed in the years since to addressing what has been a staggering vulnerability in our electoral system. It was previously far too easy to commit the crime of electoral fraud in the polling station and almost impossible to detect it. I am immensely proud that we have now delivered this new process and fulfilled our manifesto commitment.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I suspect that the Minister and I were reading different reports, because the first report cards on the roll-out of voter identification in England are out, and they are not good. The Electoral Commission’s report—the result of extensive work monitoring and analysing the recent elections—warned that disabled people and the unemployed found it harder to show accepted voter ID, as well as younger people and people from ethnic minorities. It also reported that on average more deprived areas had a higher proportion turned away compared with less deprived areas. The Local Government Information Unit reported that approximately 14,000 voters were not given a ballot paper because they could not show an accepted form of ID and significantly more were deterred from voting because of the ID requirement.

This is not just about England, because the next election is UK wide—it will affect my constituents in North East Fife. Hundreds of thousands of people risk being turned away at the next election, at a cost to the taxpayer of £120 million over the next decade, and all of that to combat levels of voter fraud that, at the last election, stood at six cases—talk about using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. A general election is perhaps no more than a year away, but it is clear from reading the reports that we are teetering on the cliff edge of a democratic travesty, not just because the roll-out of voter ID has been botched—many of us believe that it should never have been implemented in the first place—but because of the Government’s apparent refusal to listen to the concerns of members of the public and Members of this House. That was what they did in the run-up to the local elections, when take-up of voter authority certificates was pitiful and local authorities were warning that they were unprepared, and that is what the Government are doing now.

I was hugely disheartened that in both the Minister’s response and the written statement published yesterday the Government seem to be taking a stance of blindly ignoring the warning signs. So far, I see no evidence to suggest that that stance will change in the Government’s evaluation report in November. I hope that the Minister will use the opportunity to start setting things right. Will the Government ensure that the evaluation report in November is truly independent? What measures are under consideration to ensure that voters will not be turned away at the general election, as the LGIU report warns? How do the Government intend to expand the roll-out of voter authority certificates ahead of the general election, and will they expand the list of acceptable forms of identification?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, but I remind all Members in this Chamber that we have already passed the Elections Act 2022; it passed the scrutiny of both Houses and is now law. If she refers to the debates in Hansard, she has treated us to a compilation of the Liberal Democrats’ greatest hits—and that is no surprise because, as always, they do one thing and say another. If she is so opposed to the principle of electoral identification and photographic identification, why did her party support its introduction in Northern Ireland? At that time, the Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesperson told Parliament that

“we accept the need for a Bill… The Liberal Democrats…welcome the Government’s intention to introduce an electoral identity card”—[Official Report, 10 July 2001; Vol. 371, c. 705-707.]

That legislation passed Second Reading without a vote. If we separate the points of substance and process from re-running the battles of the past, of course we take the recommendations of the independent Electoral Commission extremely seriously, as we set out in detail in the report and as I set out in my remarks earlier.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is on exactly the right lines. That is what the NPPF consultation hopes to do.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

T6. I have raised the issue of overseas voters in this place before, and I understand that the regulations will be brought forward by the end of the year, but we might have a general election by then, and we need six months between the regulations being made and a general election in order for them to take effect. Can the Secretary of State provide more clarity on the guarantee that overseas voters will be able to vote?

[Michael Gove]

I will do everything in my power to ensure that there is at least six months between those regulations coming forward and any general election.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

That sort of behaviour is completely unacceptable. I thank my hon. Friend for bringing it to our attention. We are committing to providing buyers of new build houses with strong powers of redress. We have legislated to establish the new homes ombudsman scheme in the Building Safety Act 2022, membership of which will be mandatory for developers.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

T6. The one good thing about the Elections Act 2022 was giving overseas voters the right to vote. But with the election likely no more than 18 months away, there is a real risk that they will again be denied their vote. Will the Secretary of State update the House on the progress of the regulations and provide assurances that they will be in place for the next election?

[Michael Gove]

We will do everything possible to give effect to that democratic extension of the mandate.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

Let me begin by declaring an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Authority.

Overall, this was a disappointing Budget for North Shropshire and for rural communities across the country. Instead of allocating levelling-up funding on the basis of need, councils will once again be forced to spend thousands in consultant and officer time, competing against each other for small pots of money which, ultimately, they may not win. Surely it is time to assess the needs of each area objectively and invest accordingly. Personally, I would not consider a marginal seat to be an indication of need, but Wednesday’s statement shamelessly funnelled funding into marginal seats, largely ignoring the urgent need in rural Britain for investment in public transport and key infrastructure.

I would welcome clarity from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on the proposals for local enterprise partnerships. The LEP in the Marches covers a number of local authority areas, and has been a driver of public and private sector investment. How will its activities be effectively absorbed across a number of different overstretched councils?

The rest of the Budget was largely taking with one hand and giving away with the other. Money to repair potholes is welcome, but the entire national potholes budget would probably not be enough to repair the badly neglected roads of Shropshire, while the active travel fund, which might have brought real benefits to all areas, has been cut. The £63 million to keep swimming pools open is welcome, but it involves another largely competitive bidding process for capital investment and energy efficiency measures. Community Leisure UK still predicts that many pools will be unable to reopen without additional funding to help with the soaring energy bills that forced them to close in the first place.

The Chancellor claimed that 100% capital allowances for businesses investing in plant and machinery would offset their corporation tax rise, but those businesses have to have the cash to invest and they need to be turning a profit to offset those capital allowances against. Rural businesses in North Shropshire have told me that the astronomical cost of energy means that they are struggling to stay afloat, not turning a comfortable profit or generating cash to invest.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

A very easy way to help small businesses to grow is to do something about the VAT tax threshold, which has not increased in line with inflation since 2017. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is preventing businesses from growing further and that the Government could have done that instead of stealth-taxing small businesses?

[Helen Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I agree.

Duty on draught beer has been cut, and that is obviously welcome for the pubs that sit at the heart of the communities in our towns and villages, but many small businesses were locked into gas and electricity contracts last year in a period of soaring prices as a result of the terrible invasion of Ukraine. Just this morning, I was contacted by a popular village pub to say that it was facing closure—despite always being too busy to fit me in for a table. It is facing a fourfold increase in its energy costs, but this Budget has cut the support that it is going to be offered, even while wholesale prices fall and it costs the Government less.

We all want to get people back into work, but there has been a real-terms cut to the public health budget, with nothing more for adult and children’s social care at a time when illness and caring responsibilities have placed enormous pressure on the workforce across every sector. Staff shortages underpin the crises in social care, the health service and the wider rural economy, and we feel them strongly in North Shropshire. In summary, this is a missed opportunity for North Shropshire and for rural communities across Britain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The simple fact is that under the present system, too few local authorities have local plans, because people do not want development in their area. Through the Bill, we are seeking to ensure that communities have a say on their local plans so that those plans are passed within the 30-month time limit that we have set out in the Bill.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

8. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of his Department’s levelling-up agenda on the cost of living for people in rural areas.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

22. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of his Department’s levelling-up agenda on the cost of living for people in rural areas.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Dehenna Davison)]

Levelling up is all about improving opportunities and living standards in all parts of the country, but we know that some cost pressures, including transport and energy, can be even greater in rural areas than in urban areas. That is why, in this year’s provisional local government finance settlement, we have proposed maintaining the £85-million rural services delivery grant. As we are concerned about the impact of the cost of living, the recent autumn statement also protected the most vulnerable by uprating benefits and pensions with inflation, strengthening the energy price guarantee, and providing cost of living payments to those most in need.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Happy new year, Mr Speaker.

Levelling-up funding will not help the systemic issues behind the cost of living crisis, but one of the challenges in rural communities is that the infrastructure is often not in place, so I am concerned about the Government’s delay in announcing the successful bids for levelling-up funding, particularly for the projects and communities that would benefit in North East Fife. I am also concerned that the Government are not pushing back the deadline on capital expenditure beyond 31 March 2025, because capital expenditure is difficult to deliver. Will they consider extending that deadline?

[Dehenna Davison]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her pertinent question. That is precisely why we are putting in place additional funding to help to support local areas to build up their local capacity and improve their ability to deliver those projects on time. Ultimately, all our constituents want to see spades in the ground and projects completed as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Andrew Stephenson)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s tireless efforts to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping in Westminster, and to her successful campaign to repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824. My ministerial colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison), and I are keen to continue to work with her to ensure that we get the balance right.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

T6. Today, representatives of food poverty charities delivered a petition to Downing Street calling for urgent steps to stop families having to rely on charitable food aid to survive. The all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks has its own inquiry. Will the Minister meet us to discuss our report and its recommendations?

[Andrew Stephenson]

I would be very happy to meet the hon. Lady.

Homes for Ukraine Scheme

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

We can see this as an evolving process, with the Government continuing to ramp up and increase the resource committed. It would perhaps be unhelpful to provide a running commentary on the number of people working on the process, not least because there will be some ebb and flow given the number of people prepared to work over the weekend versus during the week. We are ensuring that the resource attributed to the effort is equal to the need and we are improving the fluency with which applications are being processed daily so that the maximum number of people who have submitted an expression of interest can house somebody from Ukraine.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Like others, I commend everybody who has come forward to support the Homes for Ukraine scheme. However, it is important to remember that those sponsors are the conduit between the Home Office, the scheme run by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the refugees with whom they have been matched up. They are awaiting home checks, and in Scotland we are still waiting for local authority guidance, which places enormous pressure on sponsors as they try to navigate the system. Indeed, my caseworkers are taking calls from distressed sponsors who want to ensure that they have done everything they can to get those whom they have sponsored safely to the UK as fast as possible. What conversations have been had about putting in place emotional support to help sponsors who are opening their homes?

[Eddie Hughes]

One thing we have seen is a tremendous effort by charities and non-governmental organisations who are incredibly well placed to offer the guidance and support that the hon. Lady refers to. On advice for councils, I understand that in Scotland it will be the responsibility of the devolved Assembly to provide that. From the tremendous efforts that I have seen in its work so far, I think that, if that has not already been provided, it will be coming very soon.

Second Homes and Holiday Lets: Rural Communities

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron).

Like other Members here today, I represent a rural and coastal constituency. North East Fife is very popular with tourists—and why would it not be? The East Neuk is known as a hidden gem, a string of pearls, with its beautiful fishing villages of Crail and Elie, St Monans, Anstruther and Cellardyke; beaches and cliffs and nature to walk on—I tackled the Elie chain walk scramble with my son last year—and the sea for swimming and sailing; it has local food producers and a burgeoning craft alcohol industry; and all that is before moving on to St Andrews with its history and golf.

Tourism is clearly a vital part of North East Fife’s local economy, but I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend on the need for a balance. Tourism is only sustainable when it works with and enhances local communities. In many respects, the communities in North East Fife continue to thrive even outside of tourist season. Over Small Business Saturday before Christmas, I had the opportunity to visit the inaugural Largo arts winter weekend, where 30 artists opened their homes and studios to showcase and sell their works. Between covid and the weather, there were arguably not many tourists, but it was a fantastic and vibrant day showing the strengths of those living in our communities.

A persistent issue for those living in North East Fife, as for other constituencies mentioned here today, is the unsustainable proliferation of second homes and holiday lets. Details from Fife Council housing services for March 2021 show that, at a minimum, almost a 10th of all the properties in the East Neuk were second homes. I say “at a minimum” because the data does not include 14 smaller villages where there are fewer than 30 second homes, it does not identify where long-term empty properties are second homes and, crucially, it does not record holiday lets at all. So the real figures are likely to be significantly higher, with some anecdotal estimates placing the number closer to half of all properties.

No community can thrive when half of all private properties are holiday accommodation. A constituent wrote to me recently, noting that during the last 25 years numbers at the local primary school had fallen from just over 100 pupils to 30. That is not good enough for the families in North East Fife or elsewhere. It is not the sign of a thriving community where children will be given opportunities to flourish as they grow up. Others have mentioned the ongoing impact that that has on other services. We all run campaigns as MPs to keep our bus services and to keep our schools and other public places open, but we find ourselves in a vicious cycle because of this problem.

As others have mentioned, these properties drive away families and drive up house prices. Last August it was reported that property prices along the East Neuk rose by more than 26%, which is fantastic if you are on the property ladder, but less so for young people and growing families, who find themselves priced out. As the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) referenced, there is an impact on councils and housing. There has always been a shortage of council housing in North East Fife, with people forced to become homeless.

I have mentioned the success of many local businesses, but no one’s income grew by more than a quarter last year, and no local business can work without employees. Like other areas, North East Fife has really struggled with employment in hospitality. There are vacancies in establishments such as the Michelin-starred Peat Inn, which has been forced to cancel lunch services owing to a lack of staff.

I welcome the actions of the Liberal Democrats on Fife Council, who brought a motion to consider the use of control orders. Those are not a silver bullet, but they do attempt to strike the right balance in our communities and, importantly, give local people a say.

I am conscious that many of the proposals mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale fall into policy areas that have been devolved to the Scottish Government. The option taken by the Scottish National party in Holyrood was to propose the licensing of properties to regulate proper usage. The Scottish Government withdrew those proposals prior to the Holyrood elections in May, having committed to respond to stakeholder concerns about the licensing scheme through a working group. However, I am sorry to say that that working group has not gone well. In August, tourism bodies, having highlighted the lack of significant change to the legislation, particularly where it impacted on traditional self-catering and bed and breakfasts, resigned from the group en masse. Since then, the group has given evidence to Holyrood’s Local Government and Communities Committee, outlining its view that the current plans would be hugely damaging to the Scottish tourism economy, particularly as we recover from covid.

I understand the frustration of those living in city areas, where noise from partygoers in rentals can be a real issue, but the solution of the legislation being outlined in Scotland will not resolve the issues experienced in rural and coastal communities such as North East Fife. My MSP colleague, Willie Rennie, continues to raise those issues in the Scottish Parliament.

So what can be done for North East Fife in Westminster? Fiscal policy could be used to encourage the sale of properties as primary residences. The Liberal Democrats have previously called for the holiday let tax loophole to be closed and for mortgage tax relief to be removed from holiday lets. Just as important as tangible policy change is the need for a consistent approach between the devolved Administrations and Westminster, as the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar), who is no longer in his place, alluded to.

Hospitality and tourism are vital for communities across the four nations of the UK. As we have seen with differing covid regulations, sometimes people do not think twice about travelling across borders to where the rules are different. I want hospitality, tourism and the communities in North East Fife to thrive, and I want them to thrive in North Devon and in Westmorland and Lonsdale, so I ask the Minister to commit to conversations with his counterparts in the Scottish Government and the other devolved Administrations to ensure that no community ends up losing out in a race to the bottom on these measures.

Budget Resolutions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Earlier in the debate, the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), who is no longer in his place, stated that levelling up is not just about geography. Although I am not yet clear what it is, I do agree with that. It is not just about people knowing that they will have decent schools, good hospitals, connected transport and investment in local jobs, no matter where they were born, grew up or live now; it is also about a society in which all people—no matter their situation, who they are or where they live—have an equal chance not just to survive, but to thrive. Public services and infrastructure are obviously part of that, and public services include the provision of social security.

It is not shameful to receive social security. That is important and not said enough. It is not shameful to be born without enough, for someone to lose their job, or to have health difficulties or caring responsibilities. As many in North East Fife and across the UK have found in the last 20 months, anyone can require to be in receipt of social security. The way that the Government have treated social security in the Budget suggests that they feel otherwise. Although it has taken some time, I am pleased that the Government now seem to recognise that universal credit is an in-work benefit. Yes, the taper rate for universal credit has been cut, but that restores only a third of what was taken away by the £20 cut, and it helps only those people already in work. There are thousands of other people struggling to enter the workplace, or in receipt of legacy benefits—and what about those, still predominantly women, with childcare commitments?

Research done earlier this year by the University of York found that most mothers claiming universal credit struggle to meet the work conditionality requirements because work coaches do not understand the commitments of childcare. The childcare element of universal credit barely covers costs anyway, but cannot be claimed until the end of the first month of paid work, so people are supposed to do up to 30 hours of work search each week while caring for their children. I know from experience, and I hope that anyone who has or had small children knows, that that is just not possible. Without reforms of conditionality and better access to full-time childcare, parents—particularly mothers and single parents—will continue to be left behind.

What about those who provide unpaid care to their loved ones and receive either carer’s allowance or the caring element of universal credit? Our society relies on those unpaid carers, but the Government’s refusal to uprate those benefits, or to give additional support, almost amounts to abandonment of those people, who do so much.

I could mention many more groups who will not experience a levelling up through the Budget, but I am aware of time, so finally I turn to vulnerable and homeless young people—young people starting their life with nothing but barriers before them. The Government appear to base their policies for under-25s on their own experience of being young. In response to a One Parent Families Scotland campaign that I and other hon. Members have supported on the young parent penalty, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has said that young people need less social security than older people because they can rely on support from their parents. How does that thinking apply to young parents who are living independently with their children, to care leavers, to homeless young people, or to those who, through no fault of their own, have no parents or care givers who can step in when things get tough?

Last week, at the launch of Centrepoint’s report on the experience of vulnerable and homeless young people in the social security system, one young person asked, “If it is not good enough for you or your children, why is it okay for us?”. I ask the Minister to think about that when reflecting on the Government’s policies. The Government can change this. By failing to even acknowledge the needs of those who provide and need support, the Government are failing to level up before they even get started.