Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-17
Topic: Civil Rights
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, to vote is a fundamental right. It is not a new-age right invented the other day; it is a fundamental civil and political right. It is also, for many of us, an ethical duty. If the Government took that view, they would not judge the balance of risk in the way that they currently are. That is where this group relates to the debate foreshadowed in the previous group on financial cost. In that debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said that it is worth it to have integrity in the system, but the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, asked whether just one conviction really justified the risk. Now we are closer to the crux of the debate Different groups of people have fought for the right to vote over many centuries, all over the world. It is one of the first-order civil rights in a democracy, and an ethical duty. If the Government agreed with me, they would judge the balance of risk rather differently from the way they are currently doing with this one conviction as evidence of a problem. Although it is always hard to prove a negative, any evidence produced for it—whether in pilots or from well-established civil society research organisations—is batted away and the Minister in the other place says, "Let’s lock the house before the burglary happens" If I am right that it is a first-order civil right, like the right to liberty, you have to judge the balance of risk and put the presumption in a slightly different place. With the right of presumption of innocence and the right to liberty, we put the presumption in a particular direction. We say that it is more important—many Conservatives not in their places would agree with me—that one innocent person does not lose their right to liberty than that even a few more who are guilty go free. If that is how we judge the presumption of innocence in relation to liberty, and if we take participation in free and fair elections as a first-order right of that kind, why do the Government judge the balance of risk in the way they do? Why are they not doing everything possible not just to ensure that those with the right to vote can do so but to encourage the behavioural change we want so that people get the habit of voting and discharge what I think is an ethical duty Some other countries say that voting should be compulsory—that it is not just an ethical duty but a legal one. That is a step too far for my libertarian instincts; speaking of which, I fought for many years with many who are not in their places on the Benches opposite, and the current Prime Minister, against the principle of compulsory identification cards for people in this country. Conservatives were some of the most eloquent participants in that debate and the Conservative Party fought elections on manifestos against it, on the basis that this is the kind of free country in which free-born English men and women should not have to carry compulsory ID It did not make me many friends among those who are now my noble friends, but that was the argument and principle that united the Conservatives with the Liberal Democrats in 2010—repealing compulsory identity legislation was their flagship policy—and I welcomed it. It seems a little odd now to say that there will not be universal compulsory identity cards for everyone but we will take your vote off you if you cannot afford ID such as a passport or a driving licence. Ministers are shaking their heads on the basis that they will make it possible for all sorts of other kinds of free and cheap ID to be available. We have to take that on trust That does not deal with the principled concern—why we require it at all, given that we blew all those trumpets about free-born Englishmen not requiring compulsory ID in the first place—or solve my practical concern about discouraging people who are already discouraged from getting into the habit of voting. The noble Lord, Lord Woolley, made that point so eloquently in the previous debate With all the comings and goings and the vivid nature of the debate, I never heard from either of the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes or Lady Verma, in what way they think fraud is of a significant enough degree in this country at the moment to justify their points about people being shut out of the process by it.