Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall speak in support of these clauses not standing part of the Bill. I do so primarily for the reasons we debated on Thursday, and I will not go over all those again in terms of the differential impact on marginalised groups. In particular, I spoke about people in poverty, and about Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, that this is not about those groups not understanding paperwork and so forth. As my noble friend said, there are all sorts of reasons why marginalised groups may find it harder to vote. If the noble Baroness reads that debate she will see that the very work that goes into getting by in poverty can itself act as a barrier to sorting out alternative ID cards. We have talked a lot about trust. One of the Government’s arguments—it has been put today—is that the measure is essential to increase trust in the electoral system. However, the Electoral Commission public opinion tracker found that when asked what would increase voter satisfaction, twice as many people replied proportional representation—which we shall discuss on Wednesday—as said increased security against fraud. Worse—here I do agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley—there is a real danger that the Government themselves are eroding trust by suggesting that fraud is a problem that could be addressed by these provisions. The more it is said that there is a problem of fraud, the more the general electorate are likely to think that there is a problem of fraud. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee warns that this could damage trust between the individual and the state. It was also pretty scathing about the quality of the evidence put forward to justify the move, saying that it was "simply not good enough" Various concerns have been raised about the evidence provided by the pilots that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, talked about—such as, in particular, that none was carried out in a large urban metropolis, and that we know nothing about the people who were turned away because they lacked the requisite identification and did not return. Nobody bothered to find out what happened to them As we heard on Thursday—there has been mention of this today too—one line of defence is that voter ID is used in most EU countries. When it was pointed out that some form of general ID is mandatory in most of those countries, the Minister said that this was neither here nor there. Actually, it is very much here and there. Whatever people think about it, if they have to carry ID around with them anyway, there is no great difficulty in taking it to the polling station. If people are not carrying it around with them anyway, that is a lot more difficult Both the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights have raised questions about the Government’s claim that the measures are proportionate—a test they need to meet to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. On the one hand, as we have heard, there is very little evidence of fraud—even allowing for the fact that it is difficult to produce such evidence. On the other hand, there is pretty overwhelming evidence that the measures are likely to have a disproportionate impact on marginalised voters and potential voters. But of course we do not know—because, as I have said, the Government have not done the research. Far from being essential to the protection of our democracy, as the Minister in the Commons claimed, these provisions are a threat to inclusive democracy and citizenship.