Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, there is a large number of amendments in this group, all of which refer to Schedule 1. As my noble friend Lord Adonis said, Schedule 1 is pretty enormous—there is a huge amount of information in it. It is concerning that there is a lot of very detailed information but that quite a lot of it is perhaps not pinned down in a way that would be helpful when making such huge changes to our electoral law It may well be a large section of the Bill but, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said, when you look at the balance between securing the integrity of the ballot and encouraging participation, unfortunately there is simply not enough in the schedule to encourage participation and increase registration. I find that disappointing, because if the Government bring forward an elections Bill, encouraging more people to use their right to vote and take part in civil society in that way should be an absolutely integral part of what such a Bill tries to achieve As I say, all the amendments refer to Schedule 1. I will batch them into three groups, which seems sensible, given their focus. First, I will speak briefly to my Amendments 63 to 69, 79 and 81, which concern the electoral identity document. Amendment 66A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and Amendment 80 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, are along similar lines. My noble friend Lord Adonis asked the Minister a number of questions about Part 2 so I will not go into detail on that, but it would be useful if the Minister could do as he said he would in the previous debate and give some more detailed answers to the relevant questions that were asked My Amendment 63 would require the Secretary of State to "publish a statement on guidance given to registration officers in relation to the implementation of Schedule 1." In the previous debate in Committee, I talked about the importance of guidance and training when introducing voter ID. As was said in the previous debate this afternoon, an enormous amount of information will be provided to electoral registration officers, local authorities and the people who will man the polling stations. It is incredibly important that everybody knows exactly what they are supposed to do, what will be allowed and what will not, and how they can support people who may have come in with the incorrect documentation, so that they do not lose their votes, which is another issue we will talk about later. It is also incredibly important that we understand how guidance is being managed and implemented. Having a regular statement on where we are with it is important in making sure that our democracy is not undermined and that we have the best response possible to these proposals. Whether you agree with them or not, if they come in, they need to be implemented as well as possible I know the Minister said that he would explain why my Amendment 64 is not necessary, but we should do everything we can to increase participation. Providing an option so that someone can apply for an electoral identity document as part of the same process as registering to vote seems a straightforward, easy, sensible thing to do. I do not understand why the Government do not want to make this explicit in the Bill; it just seems terribly sensible to me.