Elections Bill — House of Commons, 2021-09-07
Topic: Civil Rights
David Michael Davis (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me start with a comment relating to the question the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) raised about the duty on Governments to be more than fair when they are dealing with electoral legislation. Governments should not, even by accident, put in place electoral legislation that advantages themselves over their opponents. However, I do have to say to her that the most egregious example of that was under Gordon Brown, and the more sanctimonious the Minister, the worse the outcome sometimes. It is incumbent on us to make sure that we do not even accidentally disadvantage the other side in elections I want to focus on just one thing today, which is the issue of voter ID. The very fact that the phrase has "ID" in it will tell everybody I am against it—they understand that—but it is not for the conventional reasons. This is not an ID system with a database behind it; it is just an ID card that people have to present. Our country has over the centuries been different from other countries: we do not allow our policemen to come up to people and say, "Can I see your papers, please?" It is important to maintain that distinction between the citizen and the state, particularly when we are talking about the fundamental rights of the individual, such as the right to vote The Government quite rightly claim that voter fraud undermines our democracy—the battle on that has already occurred to some extent—but the primary voter fraud has been in postal votes, not in personation. We all know how it has occurred in communities up and down the country, and we should deal with it ruthlessly and prosecute. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), who used to serve with me as a Minister in the Brexit Department, that the answer to his question is that the prosecution should happen in his constituency. That is what should happen, but let us be clear: since 2014 only three prosecutions have occurred. There have been 30-odd allegations but only three prosecutions, and that is out of many tens of millions of votes cast. So there have been 30-odd allegations, three prosecutions and zero election outcomes influenced; that is what we must bear in mind On the back of that, Ministers will want to introduce mandatory voter identification. It is an illiberal solution—unsurprisingly coming from the Cabinet Office, as that is what it always thinks up—in search of a non-existent problem. [Interruption.] I have at least some support on my side of the House The Government’s own research found that those with disabilities, the unemployed, people without qualifications, people who had never voted before and ethnic minorities were all less likely to hold any form of ID; those are the sorts of groups we are talking about. In two groups—the over-85s and the disabled—between 5% and 10% had no photo ID. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has warned that the introduction of voter ID may have a discriminatory effect on those groups and other protected groups, and the trial referred to by the Liberal spokesman, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), when 700 people did not vote as a result of photo ID being required, took place in a set of areas where the numbers of people in these groups were very low; it was basically the southern English test area, not central Bradford or wherever This is very serious. We are talking about quite a significant fraction of our population. There are 2 million people in the groups I have described who will have to be met by some ID system, and that must be balanced against three voter convictions. That is the problem we are facing.