Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-23
Topic: Government Operations
Paul Scriven (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, first, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Like many noble Lords, I welcome the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Moore. He enlightened me, as someone who has not been to Hastings, that modern Hastings is more heaven than hell—and I am sure his fellow citizens will be very pleased to hear that This has been a very forensic Second Reading debate. But let us be clear that this is not just any Bill; it is a Bill that has significant constitutional implications. It will be the basis on which our electoral system will take place—the platform of our democracy, which citizens need to have unshakable confidence in, so they can know that their Government and their local elected representatives have got there through a free, fair and independent electoral system There are many provisions in this Bill that these Benches have sympathy with: securing the postal vote and dealing with potential fraud in the postal vote, intimidation and digital imprints are a few that we would support. However, we have heard from many noble Lords across all sides of the House that the Bill has significant flaws that the Government have not addressed in the other place. Therefore, it will be down to this House to do its best to ensure that we do our job to scrutinise and reform a Bill that has fundamental flaws and that will change—if it is not amended—the balance of how the electoral system works. It will, in effect, give a balance of power to the party of government. It will give that party an inbuilt set of advantages This is not the basis for a free, fair and independent electoral system. It goes against the very notion of fairness that this country is renowned for, and it will diminish our international reputation for having a system that is admired and beyond reproach. That is why, in doing our job, as many noble Lords have said, we should say that there are certain provisions and clauses in the Bill that should not be here and that the Government should seriously consider not going forward as part of the Bill. In particular, Clauses 1, 2, 14, 15 and 17 have significant flaws I have to say to the Minister that, when a Bill unites both the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and myself, it means that there is some fundamental flaw in it. It is very clear that if the Minister’s response does not give confidence to the House, we may do something which has precedent and, before it goes to a full Committee of this House, see certain clauses going to a Select Committee of this House—because this Bill has not had the pre-legislative scrutiny it desired. It has serious implications for the electoral integrity of our country. It is beholden on this House to deal with that with the seriousness it so desires and needs. So the Minister’s response has to be far better and more detailed than the shoddy response the Government gave to the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s report. I am sure this will determine whether these Benches and other noble Lords decide whether we desire this to go to a scrutiny committee to seek further investigation before it goes to a full Committee of the House There are many provisions in the Bill, including the provision on voter ID, which are very controversial. I have to say, very gently, that I find irony in predominantly male, white, middle-aged and older men telling us that photographic ID is not an issue. When noble Lords from different demographics from those have said that there is a problem, those with the voices that may not be the loudest are again drowned out. We have to listen; voter photographic ID is an issue for certain demographics. The noble Lord, Lord Woolley, explained some of the issues to do with black, Asian and ethnic minority voters. My noble friend Lady Barker talked about some in the LGBT community. There is an issue with photographic ID which will mean that some people will not vote The Government say that we have to go on the precautionary principle on this, without any evidence whatever that there is significant abuse of personation in voting. Well, if it is about using the precautionary principle in legislation, why not have photographic ID to go into a supermarket just in case you are a shoplifter? The principle is flawed. It will have an effect on people having a right to vote. It is putting up barriers when actually we should be tearing down barriers for people to vote There is no significant evidence that anybody on the Government Benches has come forward with that somehow personation is a big issue in the electoral system in the UK. To answer the statistic put by the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, the committee in the other House came up with the figure; 0.00035% of all votes cast in 2019 were suspected and then prosecuted as voter personation. Many have spoken, including the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, about such issues. The cost of this is not actually £180 million. The cost, depending on the number of people who will require voter ID, is somewhere between £180 million and £450 million, based on the report from the other place. So we will be scrutinising this part of the Bill very heavily These Benches, as my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford has pointed out, have sympathy for the calls from the RNIB to have on the face of the Bill minimum standards for people who are blind or partially sighted, and that there should be a provision for who the person helping them should be—not just anybody over the age of 18 Issues of who is eligible to vote from overseas have been clearly shown to be controversial, and in some cases show levels of complexity being added to layers and layers of election law. There is particular concern about those from EU countries. As my noble friend Lord Shipley pointed out, you could have two people who live in the same house, who are from the same country, who arrived on different dates, who both pay their taxes and who do the same jobs, but one would be eligible to vote in local elections and one would not. Therefore, we need to think much more closely about a system of residency rather than a system relating to the country you come from for people to be able to vote in elections in the UK As my noble friend Lord Rennard pointed out, very significantly, while we welcome the extension of the right for people overseas to vote and doing away with the 15-year limit, there are clear issues about whether the intention is not just about voting but about the use of donations from very rich people abroad, some of whom live in tax havens and who will fund a particular party in this country. There are real reservations about that. As my noble friend said—and I ask the Minister to respond on it—a commitment was made in 2019 to pass legislation that would ban large donations from anyone resident abroad for tax purposes. Has that been enacted and, if not, why not I come to two other issues. The first is first past the post, and its imposition on areas which have a mayoral system and police and crime commissioners. It is absolute nonsense to suggest that the public in this country do not have the ability to understand the alternative vote system. It has been used; it is used again and again. People in Northern Ireland use the single transferable system. If you want to talk about a difficult system, the single transferable vote system is far more complex than that used for mayoral elections, but there is no intention in Northern Ireland to take that away because it is seen to deal with people’s votes in a more proportionate way The final issue is the chilling approach of doing away with the independence of the Electoral Commission. I do not think that any of us could add to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said on this. It is absolutely breath-taking that a piece of legislation should talk about an independent regulator of the electoral system having to carry out the priorities of Her Majesty’s Government. That completely takes away the independence of the Electoral Commission, and in no circumstances should it be in the Bill. As I already indicated, these Benches and others will fight that clause For elections to be free, fair and independent, they need to be built on a bedrock of a strong and functioning democracy, one that the public have trust in and one that they feel does not favour any one party or anybody who has friends with very deep pockets. That is why we on these Benches oppose many of the clauses in this Bill and will do our best to build a consensus with others across the House to make the Bill better so that it really brings about a platform for free, fair and independent elections to rest on.