Elections Bill — House of Commons, 2022-01-17
Topic: Mixed Topics
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I am delighted to speak in this debate. The first thing I should say is in response to the Scottish National party Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara): the betrayal would be not passing the Bill. I refer everyone who is concerned about it to my speech in the first Adjournment debate of this Parliament, where I set out in 15 minutes—I will not be able to shoehorn it into this speech—what has been happening in Wycombe. The idea that personation is not a problem certainly does not accord with my experience in Wycombe. [Interruption.] I am grateful that I have been asked how many have been prosecuted, as that is precisely the problem: it is not being prosecuted In that speech, which I hope Members will read, I set out time and again the problems we face, with offences not being prosecuted, sometimes even when we present the evidence meticulously. I will not refer to a court case in detail, but I am pleased that a prosecution is in progress before the courts and I say only that I hope it reaches a speedy conclusion. Once it is concluded, I may have more to say about it—it relates to postal votes. Some Members are kidding themselves, and if their elections are in the kind of condition that they say they are, I very much wish that Wycombe reflected their experience. However, I have to say that elections in Wycombe in some quarters need cleaning up, so I welcome the Bill I particularly want to speak to new clauses 15 and 1, amendment 1 and new schedule 1. New clause 15 was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), who is not in his place. I am grateful that it is a probing amendment, because it might be a problem if people could not register twice in two different council elections, but I am grateful he has put that point on the record, because there is more the Government could do on the integrity of the electoral roll. As I said in my Adjournment debate, at the last election I saw a WhatsApp message from someone I could name saying, "Right, I have voted in Birmingham. I am now coming to vote against Baker in Wycombe." You could not make it up: an open admission of a fraud—[Interruption.] Indeed, we put these things forward I support the basis of new clause 15. In practice, the electoral roll does not always correctly list voters who are entitled to vote at a particular address, as the entry can often be out of date or we might find that an elector has registered fraudulently. If people are incorrectly listed on the register, that increases the potential for criminality, especially through absent voting. Not all EU nationals are correctly identified with a "G" marker, and we do know that foreign nationals sometimes vote in UK general elections, although they may not know that they are not entitled to do so On new clause 1 and 18-year-olds, I am clear that many of the 16 and 17-year-olds I meet in my constituency are thoroughly politically engaged and ready to vote, but we have to take a decision about when somebody is an adult. We heard some of the examples given in the debate. I would far rather we converged consistently on the age of 18, rather than talking about 16 and 17-year-olds I said in an intervention earlier, which the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) kindly acknowledged, that it is far more dangerous to vote Labour than to have a pint, and I would certainly stand by that, although I would be grateful for the opportunity to buy him a pint to discuss it. Amendment 1, from the Opposition Front Bench team, deals with removing the voter ID provisions, and I have touched on that already. We have already heard from Members that people will be able to get their ID, but some of the accounts of personation in Wycombe that I have heard are so egregious and yet somehow the officers on duty in polling stations have not felt able to report it and stop it. I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to do much more to equip officers in polling stations to do their duty to uphold the law and make sure that personation is prosecuted. I would certainly be grateful if every instance of it was brought before the courts Finally, on new schedule 1, which is about making regulations on registration, absent voting and other matters, of course I support the Government, but I say as briefly as I can that they could have gone further. In the limited time available I simply say two things. The first is that voters need explicit information about their rights in election law, so that when they vote postally at home they know what constitutes an offence that infringes their rights. The other issue is that when a person wishes to challenge an entry on the electoral roll, although it is important that an accused person knows who is accusing them, let us make sure that that name emerges late in the process of a charge, so that we do not deter people from making inquiries.