Representation of the People (Postal and Proxy Voting etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Hayward

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that comprehensive introduction. We have to think about the context in which we are considering these statutory instruments. I will contain my remarks to the first one, about postal and proxy voting overall.

The context is that, just this month, the Electoral Commission’s report on the May elections noted that there had been a significant exclusion of people who wanted to vote from being able to vote by the process of voter ID. The Electoral Commission concluded that poorer people, people with disabilities and those from minoritised communities were significantly over- represented among that group. The Electoral Commission said that hundreds of thousands of people could be excluded from exercising their vote in the next general election. I note that, like many Members of your Lordships’ House in debates on the Elections Act, the commission made urgent recommendations to allow for a wider list of documents for voter ID and to allow other voters to attest to the identity of a voter who is with them at the time. In this context, can the Minister explain why, in its reflections on the election, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities failed to mention any of the Electoral Commission’s criticisms and described the rollout as “very encouraging”?

That is important in the context of these changes, which I now come to the detail of. First, under Section 3 of the Elections Act, we are looking at a time limit of three years for postal voting, when there is currently no limit. It is possible to look at this in two ways. The first is people being reminded that they have a postal vote. I am sure that some Members of your Lordships’ House have knocked on people’s doors and said, “Have you got a postal vote?”, and they reply, “Oh, I think so. I am not sure”. Obviously, people being reminded of where they are and being reminded to renew is not a bad thing. However, I also think of the many, often but not always elderly, voters who have a pattern: they know exactly what their involvement in elections is and they have been doing it for decades. This is a disruption that could see them lose their right to vote, if they are unable to leave the house to go to a polling station on polling day and they expect their postal vote to turn up, but it does not—and, the day before, they ring the council and it is all too late.

In that context, I have a specific question regarding the operation of Section 3. Will local election returning officers be able to use methods other than post? We all know that, these days, hardly anything arrives in the post except flyers and advertising leaflets. People tend to throw the whole lot in the bin sometimes. Will there be text messages and emails, or will they be encouraged to knock on doors, if they have sufficient capacity? What is envisaged about that three-year reminder?

I come to Section 6 of the Elections Act, about the limit of four on the number of proxy votes. Again, this goes both ways: you can imagine a situation where a family has genuinely sat down and agreed how they want their votes to be exercised by proxy, where this could exclude people from exercising their vote. But I also see the concerns here, so Section 6 is perhaps something to keep an eye on to see how many complaints come in and what the situation is.

Finally, because I do not get to do it very often, I welcome the Government’s move to enable absent vote applications to be made online rather than the current paper process. This is an obvious small piece of improvement. However, will the paper process remain for people who are unable to navigate the online process, as is still the case for many people? I also welcome the digital identity checks for absent voter applications. Again, that seems to be a modernisation.

Introducing the SI, the Minister said that the Government want a modern, accessible system. This SI makes a couple of small steps forward, but we cannot forget the context: hundreds of thousands of people are going to be excluded from voting in the next general election unless the Government change the arrangements for voter ID.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, before I make any comments, I wish my noble friend Lady Scott well since she handles election matters in most circumstances. I think the whole Committee would wish to do so. Although she was not necessarily due to handle this Committee, I think it is appropriate in these circumstances so to do.

I will follow the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, in relation to elections by looking at elections in the context of two major changes that we are seeing. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, touched on one: the range of changes we are seeing in relation to elections law as part of the Elections Act, which I broadly support.

The other is that we are watching the development of election events, almost. Historically, people used to register on the electoral roll and that was an ongoing process. What we see nowadays is an immediate massive surge in registration at the point of an election, whether a local or a general election. The implications of that are that EROs and elections administrators face an enormous burden. We should not underestimate that burden, particularly because as legislators we are imposing ever more elections on the system. One thinks of mayors and regional mayors, and we now have environmental plans. Two years ago people in Liverpool went to vote in five different elections; they had multiple votes to cast. That is likely to continue. Therefore, the burden on elections administration is very substantial indeed and seems to be ever growing.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, referred to the Electoral Commission’s comments in relation to voter ID. There has been pressure from other directions. The Electoral Commission not only referred to possible qualifications in terms of documents that may be produced but made other recommendations. I would appreciate an indication as to whether the Government intend to work with the Electoral Commission and other bodies to introduce any of the changes that are referred to in its report before a general election or the next local elections. The other day I discussed this with the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Wallace, and the timetable would be very tight, but it is another part of the burden that we are imposing on electoral officers in councils.

I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, is going to raise the burden of overseas voter registrations —which will come at some later stage—but, just in case he is not, I do so on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, while I have the floor. It is a fairly complex matter. I have been in communication with the Government because, with all-party support, I was lucky enough to get the Ballot Secrecy Act through this House and the other—it has become legislation. That is another burden that will be imposed on electoral officers in councils.

I have written to my noble friend Lady Scott about my legislation and she has indicated that there will be an SI at some stage. Can my noble friend indicate when that will come forward, as that will be yet another piece of legislation? When writing to my noble friend Lady Scott, I raised the Ballot Secrecy Act; I do not expect my noble friend the Minister to respond to this, but I questioned whether the briefings provided were accurate and consistent and raised other issues around elections, referenda, recall petitions and the like. I got answers to questions I had not asked, rather than to those I had. In one case, I did get an answer—I did not like it, but I accepted it—but in two others I got answers to questions I had not asked. My noble friend Lady Scott has offered to discuss this further with me. At this point I formally say, “Yes, please”, whether that is with her or another Minister, and with officials.

Elections Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Hayward

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 21st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention. She and I clearly recognise that there is a problem and there are different problems and you can tackle them in different ways. I happen to believe that photo ID is a way of tackling the issue.

Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, is not present. I was present on the Select Committee when he gave evidence. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, was also present but, unfortunately, he clearly is not able to be here today. The noble Lord, Lord Woolley, dealt with issues way beyond the question of voter registration and voter ID when he gave evidence to the Select Committee. It was an incredibly powerful submission then and it was last week in his contribution here. He was essentially talking about alienation from society in a much broader sense, and I recognise that. I live in the ward which I think has the largest proportion of voters of west African origin of any ward in the country—Camberwell Green. In Camberwell Green, if you want to collect a package from the Post Office—and I did last week—you are required to produce one of six items of ID, four of which are photo ID, two of which are not and one of those I do not think anybody would use in this day and age. In terms of general—

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. He spoke about the alienation of voters and earlier he spoke about the validity of the process. Does he agree that concern about that validity of the process surely reflects the fact that people look at the composition of the other place—or, indeed, this place—and feel like it does not represent them? They maybe even know that 44% of votes went to the Tories and they got 100% of the power in the other place. People’s deep feeling of alienation and lack of validity does not relate to voter ID; it is much more deep-seated.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I agree with the noble Baroness, but I am not sure that it is specifically or solely related to this particular Bill. There are much broader issues on paths down which I will not go at this stage. I see it on a daily basis. I see it from where I came this afternoon to be in this Chamber.

There have been references to the question of personation and the quantities of that. The police have not pursued personation in some cases. I refer here to Richard Mawrey QC’s judgment in the petitions in relation to Tower Hamlets. He refers to a former Labour councillor, Mr Kabir Ahmed, and I quote from paragraph 326 in his report:

“Applying the statutory test of residence set out above, I am quite satisfied that 326a Bethnal Green Road was not such a ‘residence’ as would entitle Mr Ahmed to be registered to vote from that address”.


That is part of the judgment of an elections court. The police did not pursue it. I am not arguing that there are large numbers of cases, but there are far more cases than are being cited. The police, for a number of different reasons, do not pursue them.

Equally, as I cited in passing at Second Reading, the Electoral Commission makes it difficult to access electoral rolls. If you are going to be able to produce proof of false registration—that is, personation—you have to refer to past electoral rolls. However, the Electoral Commission has quite specifically said that EROs

“should not provide access to any register other than the current register”,

so that makes it very difficult indeed for people to prove personation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I disagree with the noble Lord, in the sense that I am talking about the rhetoric, and the context and reason for this, whether it is happening on a state-by-state basis or nationally. What is behind it is in my second quote, from Max Feldman at the Brennan Center for Justice, who says that

“claims of widespread fraud are nothing more than old wine in new bottles. President Trump and his allies have long claimed, without evidence, that different aspects of our elections are infected with voter fraud. Before mail voting, they pushed similar false narratives about noncitizen voting, voter impersonation, and double voting”.

To pick up the noble Lord’s point about people’s concerns about the voting system, these days we see a great deal of sharing and cross-fertilisation of concerns on social media. Rhetoric spread by powerful, well-funded forces will have an impact on people’s views, as we have seen in other contexts.

The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, suggested that people were coming perilously close to suggesting that the purpose behind voter ID was voter suppression. I am not going to come “perilously close” to it; I believe that that is the case.

The second point I want to make concerns history. I do not believe that we are guaranteed to gradually progress positively into the future, but look at the trends. In 1832 and 1867, the Great Reform Acts spread the right to vote among men. In 1918 and 1928, women got the right to vote. In 1969, and implemented in 1970, the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18. That is all heading in the direction of greater engagement. In Oral Questions earlier we saw some fairly severe attacks on democracy and devolution in the UK, but Scotland and Wales have gone further down this road, with votes at 16. Democracy has been on a long-term trend of engaging more people. We have to ask why we are suddenly heading in the opposite direction with voter ID.

My final point is a practical one. Most of this discussion has focused on the estimated 2 million people who do not have any ID. I do not think we have talked enough about the people who do not have ID on them at the point where they go to vote. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, pointed out, none of the pilots was in a large urban area.

I was in a large urban area—Sheffield—telling on a polling station in one of the years when the pilots were being conducted. I saw a large number of people who had seen the reports and thought that they had to have ID.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

The noble Baroness is citing where the pilots took place. Earlier on, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, did not seem to be aware that pilots had taken place. Was it not the case that a number of local councils refused to participate in the pilots? It is not that those places were chosen by the Government; it is that those were the places which were allowed to participate by the local authorities.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I respectfully respond to the noble Lord that, whether it was the choice of the local authorities or not, it harms the quality of the evidence before us.

Representation of the People (Proxy Vote Applications) (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Hayward

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

The noble Lord in his opening comments made reference to the previous SIs, which were debated in the Chamber on 4 March last year and which included a number of changes, as he indicated. One of them was in relation to the number of signatures that could be required for nominations for local elections: it was previously 10 and was reduced to two in the circumstances relating to coronavirus.

At the time the subject was debated, I indicated that I regretted that the change was time-limited to end in February 2022. Since then, consultations have taken place. I know that I speak in support of the views of the LGA and that this matter has been discussed informally at the Parliamentary Parties Panel in the presence of the Electoral Commission. There is therefore general all-party support—although I say this without having consulted the Green Party; I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is due to speak in a moment so she may express a view. But there is a general all-party view that the one, time-limited exemption to the end of February 2022 should now be lifted and that there should be an ongoing exemption. That would fit in with the spirit of the SI to which we are referring today.

I failed to say at the start of my comments that I had given the Minister and his office notice that I was intending to cover this point. Given that we are nearing the local elections, I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate that something which has all-party support can be expedited, that the time limit should be removed and that we can go on using two signatures, which is more than is required now in Wales and Scotland.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, as is evident, the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, and I have not consulted in advance on this. I very much agree with his comments, and indeed I offer further cross-party support to this amendment. I also wanted to raise a question about why this is only for 12 months and to look at the practical situation that we are in now.

The Minister in introducing this SI focused rightly— I have absolutely no disagreement on the democracy side of this SI—on the obvious public health element here. You do not want people with a contagious illness, very keen to vote, trailing into the polling station, with all the obvious risks of spreading that disease further. If we look back over recent history—SARS, MERS, swine flu, the threat of bird flu—we are in a new age where contagious illness is becoming more of a threat and a problem. We also have a big problem with antibiotic resistance to a variety of diseases.

To preserve both democracy and public health, the department, parties and everyone should think about the fact that contagious illness is a threat to us all. I do not necessarily expect a sudden big announcement today, but I want to put that on the agenda. People want to do the right thing both for democracy and not to spread an illness. Obviously, illnesses come on quite quickly—it is not something that you can predict—so it would make sense to have a measure like this for all relevant illnesses, both for democracy and for public health.