Elections Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

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

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

In which case, I apologise for misinterpreting the noble Baroness’s expression below her mask.

If noble Lords look at the most recent poll undertaken by the Electoral Commission, it is striking that concern about recent ballots and votes diminished quite markedly, despite the fact that there had been no change in electoral law. It is my contention that one reason for this is that we are moving further away from the Brexit vote, which generated large concerns among large numbers of people about the validity of certain votes.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Has not the noble Lord just undermined his own argument, then? If things are moving in the right direction, with what problem is this legislation seeking to deal?

In addition, the noble Lord said that we have not read the report—I have read the report. There is a huge difference between an expression of concern and evidence of concern. If we sought to change the law of the land for everything about which people expressed concern when responding to opinion polls and surveys, this House would never stop sitting. The issue is evidence of concern. What evidence of concern—beyond that which has already been indicated to the Committee and which is extremely limited—can the noble Lord point to?

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

The noble Lord is misinterpreting the data within those datasets and what the Electoral Commission and an individual research team undertook to do. They were trying to establish the level of concern. Had the noble Lord allowed me to continue for a few more sentences, I would have identified why I am concerned about that. It is not about a particular election; it is about when elections or referendums become close and contentious.

I speak here as a remainer—I was not a Brexiteer. When a referendum, or some form of ballot, becomes both close and contentious, the way in which the ballots have been conducted comes out as a matter of concern. As a result, it is precisely for those reasons that I am concerned that we should have certainty and security in the process.

I do not regard it as a process of voter suppression. President Trump—or Donald Trump, whatever you like to call him—had a basis of foundation for his arguments against the result at the last presidential election because there were uncertainties about the way in which it was conducted. As far as I am concerned, I want to see certainty in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Well, I do not suppose that surprises me. I bet one bit of research they have done and been careful to check on—I cannot be as generous as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, on this—is whether this change will have a serious adverse effect on the number of Conservatives voting at the next election.

We know roughly the demography that is most likely to be affected—and, by the way, it is not being patronising to people on low incomes to say that we know as a matter of fact that, in general terms, the wealthier the area, the higher the turnout. That is not because people in lower-income areas do not understand what is involved. There can be all sorts of practical reasons. If you live in rented accommodation, you may not get your poll card as easily. I know you do not have to have a poll card to vote—you will need a lot more in future—but, if people do not have photo identification, clearly they are more likely to miss out on voting at subsequent elections. If, in proposing this change to the requirements on voters, the noble Lord, Lord True—a lifelong Conservative, as I am lifelong Labour—had found in his research that it was going to really cost his party something, I very much doubt he would be bringing it forward, let alone bringing it forward with such enthusiasm.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. What he and the Committee are addressing are the potentially very serious but unknown and unquantified ill effects of this reform. Normally when a measure which could have an enormously detrimental social impact of this kind is proposed in these circumstances, the proposal is to pilot it. My noble friend will remember, because we were both in government at the time, that, when this House wrecked the ID card Bill, it did so led by Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, a former Cabinet Secretary, on the grounds that, if such a major piece of legislation was being proposed, even though it was in the Labour Party manifesto, it should be piloted. It was on that basis that we lost a large part of the legislation. Does my noble friend not think that it is highly appropriate and indeed necessary that a change of this magnitude should be piloted to see what the effects are before it becomes the universal law of the land?

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I absolutely agree. I would add only one point to my noble friend’s observations. If we regard the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust as a reputable research body, it is saying that something like 1.7 million people are without voter ID—I do not have the notes here, but it is a very substantial figure—and they are overwhelmingly people on lower incomes. So there is a lot that we do know, but it would certainly be a lot better to have a pilot study before this kind of change was introduced.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

I am sorry that I do not have chapter and verse with me, but the Electoral Commission has called for voter ID since 2014. As I said, Northern Ireland has used it for nearly 40 years.

I find it quite extraordinary that polling station procedures in Great Britain are virtually the same today as they were when I started voting 50 years ago. It is quite remarkable.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

If the system works well, why change it? I thought it was a good Conservative principle that, when it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

The world has changed very considerably in the past half a century.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

If I may intervene, I knew where the pilots had taken place, but they were not nearly proportionate to the scale of the reforms being introduced. We do not know anything about their likely impact on voter turnout or the administrative issues that will be raised by the nationwide introduction of this reform. The very small, selective pilots were not even in representative areas. The issue of piloting is still very much there. If this is to be a nationwide reform—we are talking about parliamentary elections—this should be piloted in many constituencies before we move in this direction.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Is it not the case that this has not been piloted before a general election? The Electoral Commission specifically says that there should be a pilot before it is ruled out for a general election.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

That is a fundamental point. They were piloted in local elections. The scale of the pilots has not been nearly proportionate to the scale of the proposed reform.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank both noble Lords, who have contributed greatly to my argument.

I come back to the question of people who own voter ID but do not happen to have it on them and to the experience of Sheffield on this particular occasion. One of the people I spoke to was a man who came speed-walking up to me, puffing slightly, and said: “Huh, do I have to have voter ID?” I said, “No, it is all right; you do not need it here.” He said, “Okay”, and dashed into the polling station.

What if I had had to say yes to that man? He was obviously having a very busy day, as many of us do—some people have to maintain two or three jobs to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head, and some people have caring responsibilities. Voting is on a Thursday, which is a working day for very many people. All these are reasons why voting can be difficult to access. Maybe a little window has opened up in your day—say you are a care worker who moves between different houses, and suddenly you have an opportunity to go past the polling station but you do not have your passport on you. Say you are a student, not living at home; perhaps you have left your passport with your parents for safekeeping because you do not travel overseas very often. You go to vote where your student residence is. Did you remember from when you heard two months ago that an election was coming? Maybe you did not even know that an election was coming, and two months ago you left your passport at home.

We have not looked enough at the facts. It is not just about people who do not own this ID. People do not have to. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, made a very powerful point that the European case studies do not match up. If you live in a country where a police officer or other official can stop you at any time and ask where your ID is, you will always have your ID on you. That is not the case in the UK.

My concluding point covers this group of amendments and many others. A lot of this Bill and the direction of the Government suggests that we have a problem with voters in the UK. I do not think we have any problem with the voters; we have huge problems with our failed political system.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, at Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Rennard, who unfortunately cannot be here today, drew attention to the Government’s negligence in trying to assess the scale of the problem that they say they seek to address. He pointed out that anyone attending a polling station who finds that their vote may have been claimed by someone else is issued with a replacement, known as a tendered ballot paper. He has been pressing the Government for some years to collate and publish the information about how many of these ballot papers are issued, and tried again recently with a Written Question.

Unfortunately, the Government would not answer, even though they know the figures. Fortunately, the independent Electoral Commission publishes them. There are several reasons why such tendered ballot papers might be issued, apart from someone impersonating a voter. The most common reason is probably a clerical error in the polling station when the wrong name is crossed off by mistake. At the last general election, 32,014,110 ballot papers were issued across the UK in 38,812 polling stations. The total number of tendered ballot papers was just 1,341. That is 0.004% of the total number of ballot papers issued—just two tendered ballot papers for each of the 650 constituencies, or one for every 30 polling stations. Most are probably issued because of clerical error or for reasons other than personation.

Clause 1 is all about a supposed solution to a problem that simply does not exist, or that the Government have been unable to show exists. At Second Reading, the Minister clearly stated that this was not about the precautionary principle to prevent voting error. I asked the Minister to reiterate: is this not the precautionary principle? If not, where is the evidence that the problem is so big that the clause’s provision is proportionate to deal with the problem?

I have also looked back at the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord True, at Second Reading. He said:

“Voter ID is used across the world, including in most European countries and in Canada.”—[Official Report, 23/2/22; col. 2228.]


He did not say that those European countries had compulsory national ID cards, meaning that no additional ID is required other than that which citizens have to carry as part of being citizens of those countries. We do not have such national ID cards and the Government are opposed to them. In Canada, a photo ID card is issued to Canadians who do not have a driving licence, thereby serving as a national ID card, and in Canada you do not need that ID to vote if you do not have it to hand, provided someone with such ID is also present at the polling station and vouches for you.

The Government have pointed to Northern Ireland, which requires voter ID, although it has a significantly different political culture that made that necessary. Northern Ireland introduced mandatory ID in 1985 in response to what happened in the 1983 general election. Nearly 1,000 people arrived at polling stations there only to be told that a vote had already been cast in their name. Police made 149 arrests for personation, resulting in 104 prosecutions. In contrast, in Great Britain, in two national elections in 2019, there was only one conviction for personation and one caution, both of which related to the European Parliament election of that year.

It should also be noted that Northern Ireland did not move immediately to require photographic ID. Elections took place there for almost 20 years with a less stringent ID requirement. The first election there to require voter ID was the 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly election. Estimates have shown that about 25,000 voters did not vote because they did not have the required ID. That is more than 1,000 per constituency. Furthermore, almost 3,500 people, 2.3% of the electorate, were initially turned away for not presenting the required ID. It took more than 12 years—I repeat, 12 years—for turnouts to return to previous levels; other factors were, of course, involved relating to political controversy in Northern Ireland.

We have very limited information about the effects of introducing any form of voter ID from pilots in just 15 out of over 400 local council elections in England, but all the information suggests that many more legitimate voters were unable to cast votes than there were people who needed replacement ballot papers. Extrapolating from these 15 pilots to around 450 local authorities suggests that perhaps 30,000 legitimate voters could have been turned away from polling stations, to say nothing of the number of people who did not attempt to vote because of the requirements.

The proposals in Part 1 of the Bill are in response to one conviction and one caution in 2019, with hardly anyone finding that their vote could have been stolen and, in any event, all were compensated with a replacement ballot paper. After the voter ID pilots, the independent Electoral Commission said that more work was needed to make sure that an identification requirement did not stop people who are eligible and want to vote in future elections. That is why Clause 1 should not stand part of this Bill.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the speech that we have just heard from the noble Lord was utterly compelling. Indeed, he gave the House a detail that I was not aware of about the impacts of compulsory voter ID in Northern Ireland; I do not think that the House was aware either. In the case of Northern Ireland—I remember the discussions that took place in government at the time—the evidence of voter personation was at a level completely out of proportion to what we are dealing with here in the case of elections in Great Britain. But if, as the noble Lord says, it took 10 years to get voter participation up—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

It was 12 years.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

That should be a matter of huge concern. In an extraordinarily un-Conservative statement earlier, the noble Baroness said that voting in the way that we used to vote 50 years ago is somehow bad and means that we are not keeping up with modern times. If we applied that principle to every other aspect of life that works well we would be seeking to change everything for the sake of it—something I imagined she thought this side of the House was seeking to do.

A combination of those two great Gladstonian reforms, the Ballot Act 1872 and the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act 1883, has maintained a level of integrity in the conduct of elections in this country that most of the rest of the world finds awe-inspiring. The idea that people look at the United Kingdom and say that, among all the democracies—let alone other regimes—there is great doubt about the integrity of our election outcomes and people are constantly concerned that ballots might be being stuffed and all that, is so far removed from reality that it is obviously a farcical proposition.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I am sorry to intervene again but is the noble Lord aware of the report of foreign observers who watched the elections in Tower Hamlets? He seems to display complete ignorance of what overseas observers said about what they saw going on in Tower Hamlets.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The big issue in Tower Hamlets, which the noble Lord referred to earlier, was electoral registration. What happened there was clearly improper registration. If the issue of registration had been dealt with, these further issues would not have arisen. This is not just an issue of principle, though many issues of principle have been raised. Rather like the Blair Government’s move to introduce ID cards, I suspect this will become a matter between the two Houses. The fact that photo ID was not in the Conservative Party manifesto will be significant; I do not think the Salisbury convention will cover the reform as proposed in this Bill. On matters of deep constitutional import such as this, how far we can press our concerns is always a fine judgment for this House. We have these debates and send amendments to the other place, and then they come back.

If this Bill gets through in this Session, the issue of compulsory photo ID might be one where we insist on our amendments, particularly in the context which the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, referred to, about how at constituency level and on a substantial scale there have been no pilots.

I have two other points, since I want to add to the debate rather than to repeat other points. This Bill is one of the most substantial that I have addressed in my entire time in Parliament, with 171 pages, 22 of which are Schedule 1, which governs the arrangements for the introduction of photo ID. Most of the legislation that this House passes is shorter than Schedule 1 of this Bill, which introduces some element of these requirements. There are 22 pages of very dense and complicated legal reforms, and I pity the electoral registration officers who will be implementing them—there will be a host of problems over the implementation. Yet despite it being 22 pages long, huge issues are not even properly addressed in Schedule 1. We are being asked to give Henry VIII powers to the Government to produce further changes in due course. Paragraph (2)(4)(a) of Schedule 1, on page 66, says that regulations may make provision about

“the timing of an application for an electoral identity document”

and

“about the issuing or collection of an electoral identity document.”

These are fundamental issues, and they are not even on the face of the Bill. They will all be subject to regulations in due course which this House, in practice, does not have the capacity to influence or to reject.

On a fundamental and crucial issue which I hope that the Minister can help me with, is there now effectively to be one point of electoral registration or two—the first when you apply to go on the electoral register and the second when you apply for your photo ID? I see that my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock has tabled amendments on this precise point, which is of huge importance and has not been addressed in the debate at all so far, of whether there should be provision for you to apply for the photo ID when you complete your electoral registration form. The Minister may have addressed this point in earlier debates, but I could not see it in Hansard. This fundamental issue may be worse than just ambiguous. I look forward to the Minister explaining this, but my reading of paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 is that you cannot apply for the two at the same time.

New Section 13BD in Schedule 1, which amends the Representation of the People Act 1983 by inserting these new provisions, says:

“An application for an electoral identity document may be made by (a) a person who is or has applied to be registered in a register of parliamentary electors”,


It does not say “is applying”. There is a fundamental difference between the two. Can the Minister help the Committee on this, since we are discussing the clause at large and it will pave the way for my noble friend Lady Hayman’s amendment in due course?

Is it the case from my reading of the schedule—I am a non-lawyer—that you cannot apply for both at the same time and therefore that it would not be legal for electoral registration officers to send one form enabling you to fill in your name and details on the register of electors and to make your application for a photographic identity document, but you must do them separately? I may be wrong, in which case I am very happy for the Minister to intervene, but if I am correct, it is a fundamental massive additional issue with this Bill. It effectively doubles the electoral registration requirements. Whereas until now it has been the accepted practice that you register once, you will now have to register twice. My noble friend Lady Lister said that in continental countries, ID cards are the norm, but, of course, there you have them by the time you register to be a voter, and do not have to go through any separate process, nor must you turn up with a separate identity card in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, it covers economic, equality and other assessments. If I misspoke, I apologise. I say for the third time what my noble friend said last week and I have said—the Government did not cover turnout. I have not sought to hide that fact because the factors that affect turnout are very wide and cannot be distinguished. Of course, analysis should not remain static, and I take that point. As we move towards implementation, I say to the Committee that we will continue to make sure that the evidence base remains up to date in terms of costings and will refine the modelling and assumptions. This is standard practice and will address the economic points.

I repeat that year-on-year turnout comparisons cannot be accurately estimated due to the volatility of the electoral cycle. As I have said, a huge variety of disparate factors play a part in whether someone chooses to vote in any particular election, from the appeal of candidates standing to personal circumstances on the day. An attempt to draw conclusions would be difficult.

In this vein, I note Amendment 142 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on post-legislative scrutiny, which has not been addressed in this group yet. I appreciate that she has not had the opportunity to speak to it, but I will reply to the amendment. The Bill already provides for an evaluation of the impacts of voter identification at the first two general elections to which it applies and the first stand-alone set of local council elections. I am pleased to say that we intend to go further and produce a process and impact evaluation of the programme and its implementation across all policy measures. I hope that this reassures the noble Baroness that our aims on this are aligned. However, I repeat what I said in an earlier group: I remain open to further conversations on this point in relation to post-legislative scrutiny. I give that undertaking to the Committee.

Finally, in the same spirit of increasing participation in our democracy and empowering those eligible to vote to do so in a secure and effective way, Clause 2 introduces an online absent vote application service and an online voter card application service. As it stands, there is no facility for electors to make an online application to get a postal vote or proxy vote. Electors must have a paper form which they complete and submit to the electoral registration officer. Here the Government are seeking to encourage participation, because in an increasingly digital world, providing an online service for applications must increase accessibility. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that his fears are unfounded. It will certainly be possible to apply for the voter card and the registration at the same time, just as one can in applying for a postal vote.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Does the Minister therefore intend to accept my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock’s Amendment 64, which says that explicitly?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I repeat that we believe that, in an increasingly digital world, where the introduction of digital services can be done securely, providing an online service for applications increases accessibility. That is our submission, and I think that would be regarded as logically correct by most people who turn on their internet in the morning.

These powers will enable the identity of applicants using the new services to be verified, as well as identity checking for other absent voter applications.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

There is a fundamental issue. The Minister has said that it will be possible to apply for the two at the same time, but paragraph 2(4) of Schedule 1 says:

“Regulations may make provision … about the timing of an application for an electoral identity document”.


Is the Minister saying to the Committee that those regulations will provide that applications for the electoral identity document can be made at the same time and as part of the same form or digital process as electoral registration itself?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am not sure whether it is under that specific rubric. Obviously, a lot of this material will come forward in regulation, including precisely the last hour at which you can make an application, et cetera. I will say to the noble Lord only that his comments were heard and I have been advised that they are not founded. There is a later group during which we can come back to this point, if we must. I can write to the noble Lord, but I think it would be helpful if I was in a position to give that assurance to the Committee, in public, on the next group.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

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.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The issue that I hope the Minister will address, and which goes to the heart of my noble friend’s Amendment 64, is that he said when he replied to me earlier that, under paragraph 2 of Schedule 1, it will be possible for people to apply at the same time. However, if we want to minimise bureaucracy, surely, we want to make it a requirement that they be able to apply at the same time, which certainly is not part of that paragraph. My reading is that it could be covered by the regulations

“about the timing of an application for an electoral identity document”

in new Clause 13BD(4), as proposed by paragraph 2 of Schedule 1. But obviously, the way to ensure that it is possible, that we minimise bureaucracy and that we do not have an impact on turnout is for the Minister to accept my noble friend’s amendment or give an undertaking from the Dispatch Box when he comes to reply—so that he has time to commune with his officials—that the regulations will provide that electors can apply at one and the same time to register to vote and for the electoral identity document.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

To save multiple interventions on my noble friend, I just want to say this: it is all very well to say “Perhaps this will all be dealt with in regulations” so long as the vires—the power—in the schedule is broad enough to allow for regulations enabling people to apply to be registered and have one of these government-provided ID documents. However, I have read paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 and what it proposes. New Clause 13BD(1)(a), which is headed “Electoral identity document: Great Britain”, says that an application for an electoral identity document may be made by a person who

“is or has applied to be registered”.

That begs the question of whether these things can be done simultaneously. If these regulations will allow for an application only when someone is already registered or has already applied to be registered, that appears to leave out the group to which my noble friend Lord Adonis refers: people who are applying to be registered but know that they do not have a relevant document and want to make one application, rather than two applications at different times.

I am sorry to labour that point but I think it might be helpful to the Minister to hear that concern so that he can deal with it in one go later on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The noble Lord is implicitly saying that he does not regard the Conservative Party manifesto as extending to photo ID. Indeed, there is a very good reason for not regarding it as extending to photo ID, because it does not say “photo ID”. It is all very well for the Minister to say that he intended it to mean that, but, as I know from having piloted controversial legislation through this House, when it comes to invoking the Salisbury convention on matters of first-rate constitutional importance such as this, what the manifesto says is absolutely crucial.

His proportionate principle is that we should start from a long list. Just from quickly scanning Amendment 80, it looks to me as if about half the items on his list do not require photographs; they give the identity of the person but not the photo. That would seem to me to be exactly the kind of position which this Committee should take—and insist on, if need be—to see that the Government’s manifesto commitment is introduced in a proportionate way and not in a way that is likely to have serious deleterious consequences.

[Lord Willetts (Con)]

Well, it will be up to the Committee to decide. I very much hope the Minister will be able to provide some welcome to my amendment, because it is certainly drafted in a way that is intended to be consistent with both the Conservative manifesto and the important report from my noble friend Lord Pickles.

I shall end by painting a picture of a scenario which several noble Lords opposite have hinted at. It is a scenario that concerns me; I think it is unlikely, but it is possible. It is that we go into the next election and in the course of election day we have, for the first time in British political history, a significant number of voters being turned away from polling stations on the grounds that they do not possess a photo ID. We would then have an election won—and I hope it will be an election won by my party—by a party with a small majority, including quite small majorities in a range of marginal seats. We will find ourselves in an extremely difficult political and constitutional crisis if people are saying, “This is an election where a Government has won by a very small majority after we have seen, for the first time on our TV screens, voters being turned away”. I think that would be catastrophic for trust in our electoral system, and everything that we agree in this Committee must be proportionate, given that there are, in the background, risks such as that. I therefore hope that, within the spirit of the Conservative manifesto, it will be possible for the Government to accept my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I agree with almost all of the previous contributions. I wish I had joined in on the previous group, but I was not here for all of it—although I certainly feel that I was. The debate covered a lot of the territory that we are going to talk about now.

For clarity, the Green Party opposes the whole premise on which the Government build their case for requiring voters to present ID. There is no real voter fraud. It is no good to keep bringing up Tower Hamlets, because that argument has been demolished already. This will disfranchise the most marginalised people in our population. It is voter suppression; there is absolutely no doubt about that.

Suppose we pretend for a moment that the Government are sincere in wanting to reduce election fraud. If that was so, they would accept a lot of the amendments in this group—for example, Amendment 64. Why on earth should that not be included? The Government could be absolutely clear by putting it in the Bill, so that we know exactly what they are thinking. Why not accept Amendment 78? If somebody has voter ID, they are accredited, so why should they not support somebody else who might have forgotten their ID?

I do not do anything where I have to show ID, although I know the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, says that she has to show it for a lot of things. The last time I was asked for ID was when I used my passport. I do not do anything that needs ID and there are a lot of people like me.

Personally, I think this is Trumpian and Putinesque. We have heard a lot about integrity and trust. I spoke to the Minister about the Government we have at the moment, our Prime Minister, No. 10 and the Cabinet Office, who quite honestly do not understand what integrity is about. They are happy to take money from dodgy Russian donors and happy to break the rules when it suits them. So please do not talk to us about integrity and trust on something like this, when it is clear that it is going to stop some people voting. That is a bad thing.

Of course, we did not hear an answer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. Why are the Government so exercised about this when they have an 80-plus majority? Surely it should be this side of the Chamber that is concerned about voter fraud. The Government are bringing forward some terrible legislation. We sit here and listen to the Ministers—I have a huge amount of respect for most of them—and I just do not understand how they can back this Government. They are a terrible Government, with terrible ideas, and this is another of them.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to return to what the Minister said in the last group, because it is going to be of great importance as this House proceeds with the Bill. I totally and completely refute his proposition that the Bill in its current form is covered by the Salisbury convention. My contention, which I will elaborate at greater length in future if need be, is that something as significant and of such great constitutional import as a requirement on all voters to have a wholly new form of photo ID is not covered by the Salisbury convention. What is covered is the requirement that there should be some form of voter ID—that is why I would not support the removal of Clause 1 in its entirety—but not photo ID. That is a fundamental distinction. Indeed, the conflict between the Blair Government, of which I was a member, and this House, which led to the loss of a substantial part of the ID cards Bill, was precisely that this House contended with a significant majority that there was not sufficient manifesto cover for the proposition being put forward.

I say this very directly to the Minister now, because I think this is going to be a very significant issue in due course. It is going to be particularly important that my noble friends on the two Front Benches of the Labour and Lib Dem parties—I am speaking to them as much as to the Minister at this point—do not fall for the argument that, simply because this Bill has come from the House of Commons and has photo ID in it, and because it is asserted that it is covered by the Salisbury convention, it is covered by the Salisbury convention. It is a particular tradition of this House, which goes to the heart of the constitution, that the occasions on which we are prepared to assert our power against the Government where they do not have manifesto cover particularly relate to constitutional issues, where we have a special role as guardian of the constitution to see that one particular party cannot gerrymander it at will, claiming a general manifesto commitment for something that specifically has a very big impact.

The noble Lord, Lord Willetts and I—I hope he does not mind me saying that he and I are old friends—both approach public policy from a fairly centrist perspective, applying rationality and so on. Not only was his speech on Amendment 80 brilliant and very compelling but he went to the absolute heart of this issue in his analysis of the distinction between the Government claiming that their manifesto contained, and gave a mandate for, an identity document requirement, and it being a photo-identity document requirement. Those are two fundamentally different propositions. The proposition that they are fundamentally different is made by the content of Amendment 80 itself, because although the noble Lord did not deconstruct his amendment, I have had time to deconstruct it since he moved it.

In Amendment 80 the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, lists 21 forms of personal identification. By my calculation, only five of them are necessarily photo IDs: driving licence, student ID card, 18+ student Oyster photocard, National Rail card and, I assume, the Young Scot National Entitlement card, because young people’s documents require photos. Of the other 16, only another three may—and I think it depends on who the issuing authority is—require a photo: a trade union membership card, a library card, and a workplace ID card. That varies very much between local authorities and trade unions, and so on. All of the rest are non-photo ID documents: birth certificate, marriage or civil partnership certificate, record of a decision on bail, bank or building society cheque book, and, and, and.

The noble Lord from the Conservative Benches made the argument that this is completely consistent with the Conservative Party manifesto. That point will be of huge importance as the House takes forward consideration of this Bill, passes amendments and then gets into what I assume will be—is very likely to be, if there is time in this Session; the sand is going through the hourglass quite rapidly—a significant standoff between this House and the other place. I have no doubt at all that not only is it within our powers but it will be our duty to resist the mandatory introduction of photo ID requirements. I suspect that Amendment 80 may well be the fundamental amendment that we take forward in some form in later stages of the Bill.

I will quickly deal with Amendments 78 and 64. We have dealt with Amendment 64, and I hope the Minister will be able to give us satisfaction on it. It is an absolutely crucial point. It is not enough for it to be possible to apply at the same time; it has to be a requirement that people can apply at the same time, or else it will become a matter of postcode lottery across the country as to whether you can apply for your identity document at the same time as you apply to register to vote.

One point that has been made which we have not debated enough is covered by Amendment 78. When I first came to the Bill, not being an expert in the evolution of the Government’s thinking, I thought that they were going to propose that people needed to turn up at the polling station with some form of ID. I thought that that alone was going to be off-putting. It never occurred to me until I read the Bill and heard what they were doing that not only were they going to have to turn up with some form of ID but it was not even sufficient for them to have an existing photo form of ID. Over and above that, even if you were going for a photo ID requirement—which, as I said, is not even covered by the Conservative manifesto—surely it would be proportionate for you to turn up with your passport or driving licence that is an existing form of photo ID. What is the great security risk of saying that people can turn up at a polling station with a passport or a driving licence? Why on earth can the Government not regard that as adequate?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

The noble Lord made a thoroughly compelling speech, as did the noble Lord, Lord Willetts. As he is from my side, so to speak, I point out that I have a more fundamental objection than he does to a compulsory ID of whatever kind for our citizens. Because he has been supportive—to some extent, I am tempted to be of the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts—can I put to him the question that I tempted the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, with earlier? If we are looking at safeguarding on the face of the primary legislation some categories that we believe will be accessible to people, but also looking at broadening these categories so that no one is deliberately or accidentally disenfranchised, what about simple debit cards?

I am playing devil’s advocate against myself because I spoke against clause stand part, but I am playing the game and trying to be constructive. It seems to me that there would be two tests—would there not?—for broadening the types of identification that we would put on the face of the legislation so that people could relax as we go forward.

The first test would be that this is documentation—a card, or whatever—that is ubiquitously available, and people have it already. Therefore we would not be putting in too many hurdles or obstacles. People have it already; ideally, they carry it around rather a lot, and it is not buried away in the attic or some other place so safe that it would be annoying to go looking for it. The second test would be that it is a reasonably secure document or object. Otherwise, if it is too easy to forge with a photocopier, what is the point?

If I am right about those two tests of security and broad availability, it seems to me that the simple banking card comes first on both criteria. It is, by definition, a very secure thing. That does not mean that it cannot be forged or stolen, but it is so ubiquitous—and used by people daily—that if someone loses it or it is pinched, they will report that immediately. They will not fail to notice that their bank statement, which was sitting on the doormat for three weeks, was lifted by their flatmate—if we really think that is going to happen. The bank card is very secure and is treasured by people, it is in ubiquitous supply in the broad community, and it is taken everywhere, whether to vote or not. There are also all sorts of incentives to protect its security. I put that to my noble friend, as I did to the noble Lord, Lord Willetts—and of course I am putting it to the Minister as well. If we are really serious about saying that this is nothing to do with putting hoops and hurdles in people’s way, why would this not have been thought of at the very outset?

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a compelling point, which is really a point for the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, as he constructs that amendment that I very much hope he will bring back on Report, having taken account of this debate.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I shall dial down the rhetoric a little here. First, I want to pick up what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said with great conviction —that it was beyond the wildest imagination that this could be a deliberate attempt at voter suppression. The Minister made the same point in responding to an earlier group. The Committee owes it to both of them to take that in good faith. So I shall move on and say that I also take in good faith what the Minister has said at least twice during our proceedings, which is that he rejects the concept of the precautionary principle. I shall make an assumption, based on a fair amount of evidence—although that is not collected from these debates in particular—that he is also against the gold-plating of legislation.

I shall speak particularly to Amendment 80, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts. All the other amendments in the group have great merit and require careful consideration by the Minister, but Amendment 80 is what has attracted my attention for further comment. Incidentally, I was originally going to say that I did not believe it encompassed parliamentary passes—but I notice that item (q) in the list is “a workplace ID card”, so possibly we may qualify under that. It would be ironic, would it not, if a busy Member of Parliament seeking re-election, dashing to the polling station at 9.55 pm on realising that they had failed to vote, was turned away because their parliamentary pass was not sufficient identity to get into the building? I see that I am going to be intervened on by another noble Lord, who, like me, has a pass that does not qualify him to vote—but that is a separate issue.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The point is that the MP would be turned away, because that pass does not mean that someone can turn up and vote. The pass is an accepted document with which someone could apply for a photo electoral ID card. If the noble Lord tries to turn up at the polling station at 9.55 pm with his parliamentary pass he will get very short shrift, because the Government will not regard it as a secure document.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

The noble Lord makes an interesting point. At the 2017 election, when I was present at the normal polling station that I attend, I had some difficulty in preventing the polling clerk issuing me with a ballot paper. He was not deterred by the fact that I was disqualified by virtue of my membership of this House. I assure your Lordships that I rejected his tendered ballot paper—“tendered” with a small “t”, obviously.

The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, made a powerful point on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, and his report. He referenced the Pickles report recommendation 8, and further parts of the report have also been read into the record in this debate. Recommendation 8 said that there was no need to be over-elaborate, and utility bills would do. My two years of junior ministerial office were in the then Department for Communities and Local Government, whose Secretary of State was the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, and I am pretty sure that, unless the noble Lord has changed his tack very considerably, he will remain fundamentally opposed to gold-plating. He was an enthusiastic pursuer of the red tape challenge, which was designed to reduce the amount of legislation and regulation, and I do not even have to consider whether he would regard the spending of £180 million on fulfilling his report as a sensible use of public money, or proportionate. I do not even have to imagine whether he regards the present arrangements as over-elaborate. I am sure that in due course the noble Lord will speak for himself. No doubt he is wisely keeping out of the way at the moment, but at some point, when his memoirs are published, we shall get to the truth.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, talked about which demographic would be hit the most. We can debate that, but there is clearly a proxy, which has been mentioned already. Some parts of the population do not have bank accounts. I would just say to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, that for them, adding a credit or debit card to the list would not help. People who do not have bank accounts, and therefore do not have bank cards, are people who are very likely to be unable to produce evidence of other things either. But they nearly all have utility bills, and that seems to be a route that the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, recommended to the Government when he drew up his report.

The Minister should remember his own first principle, which is “No precautionary principle: don’t do anything unless there’s evidence to show it is needed”. There is no evidence to show that this is needed. His next principle is “Don’t gold-plate”—and he should remember the red tape challenge. The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, has provided the Government with the solution they are looking for, which would allow them to say to whoever they have to give an account to, “We’ve fulfilled our manifesto pledge, and we have a scheme that doesn’t strip out electors and reduce their propensity to come along and vote”. I support all the amendments in the group, but Amendment 80 ought to be the foundation stone for the Government to do a diplomatic and nuanced U-turn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, again I thank all those who have spoken in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, outside what he imagined to be the walls of Jericho, sounded a very loud trumpet call to lead his Front Bench into a battle over the Salisbury convention. I will not pursue this. It is for everybody in the House to decide to what extent the opinion of the other place and the Government’s manifesto should be respected or not. I made a statement about that at the beginning of our proceedings.

I was asked about the card and the words “is or has”. I shall come to this shortly because it is important. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that any voter who does not have one of the forms of identification listed in the Bill will be able to apply for a voter card. There is a wide range. I know that my noble friend Lord Willetts wants to extend it. The card is supplementary. All the other types of identification are listed. Expired identification will also be permitted. Not every elector will be required to have the voter card. People will be able to apply for it at the same time as they register to vote, so the process will be as easy and accessible as possible. If they are already registered and need a voter card, they will be able to apply online, on paper or in person. It is our ambition that they will be able to do so until 5 pm on the day before polling day. That was challenged by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. I will come back to it. The Government would regard that as unnecessarily restrictive.

I am not a parliamentary draftsman, but I am advised that the wording,

“is or has applied to be”

is there because, on the wording of Amendment 64, it could be construed that someone who is applying should be able to get it. You obviously have to be on the register to get the voter card. Either you are on it, or you have applied to register. You send your letter or your online application in. With both applications, the process will be that the registration officer will check the correctness of the application to register. When someone is on the register, they will be able to have the voter card. It is sequential, but the application can be done at the same time. This is the purport of why these words are there.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The Minister has been extremely helpful on this point. An extremely important statement has been made from the Front Bench. To close the point completely, in the regulations that the Government are going to produce, will the Minister undertake that this will be made an explicit requirement of all electoral registration officers? Making available the facility to apply for both at the same time is not just something that they can do; it is something that they must do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, we believe on the basis of our discussions that it is, and should be, practical. Whether or not you agree with the policy, it should surely be desirable that the card be made available up to the latest possible moment.

Amendments 79 to 81 relate to the range of identity documents; my noble friend Lord Willetts came out with a very long list. As I said on the previous group, the list of acceptable documents in the Bill was drawn up against the widest possible range of documents that would meet strong standards of security. That is the conclusion that we have reached. The Electoral Commission said that photo-only identification had the greatest security value but, as I said on the previous group—and it is there on page 81, lines 24 and 25 of the Bill—other documents may be added. However, for the reasons of security that I gave on the previous group and give again, we do not believe that the list should be extended in the way that my noble friend suggests, and we therefore cannot support this amendment.

We also see little merit in Amendment 63—which I should have referred to—proposing an annual statement from the Secretary of State on numbers of documents issued. Only individual local authorities will have the complete set of cards issued, as they will not be issued centrally. When the Electoral Commission does the post-operative examination of what happened, I am sure that it will consider those figures.

On Amendments 83 and 84, I am pleased to say that, as set out in paragraph 22 of Schedule 1, we already intend that returning officers, through their polling station staff, will record and collate information on anyone who applies for the issue of a ballot paper and is refused. This will be set out in secondary legislation, and we are working on the details with the Electoral Commission and returning officers. Of course, the polling station will already have informed the person concerned that they have been refused a ballot paper and why, so we think that a letter is an unnecessary further step. As I said, secondary legislation will cover this point.

In the light of this, these amendments would ultimately either duplicate or extend processes which are provided for in the Bill—making them either unnecessary or unacceptable to the Government—while only increasing the administrative burden on the electoral sector; for example, an enormous list of documents might do that in itself. For this reason and the other reasons mentioned, I beg that these amendments are not pressed.

I gave a long response, as this is quite a large group. I hope that I have managed to address at least the main points that were made.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The Minister is making important new points in his closing remarks that are of significance to the Committee. He has drawn our attention to new paragraph (IQ), inserted by paragraph 18 of Schedule 1, on page 81, which says:

“Regulations may make provisions varying paragraph (1H), (1I) or (1J)”,


which give the list of acceptable documents,

“by … adding a reference to a document to any of those paragraphs”.

He has just said to the Committee that that could allow the Government to extend it to any other documents. My reading of that is that it could allow for the extension to a document which is not a photo ID document. Have I correctly construed that new paragraph?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s policy position is clear. I will probably get wrapped over the knuckles as I may not have construed the Bill correctly because of feeling hungry at 7.29 pm. If I did not then, once we come back, I will correct the record. Certainly, the provision is there. As I said in my speech on the previous group, if the Government consider that there are other documents which can meet the security standards required—some photographic documents currently do not and are therefore excluded—then that is why we were taking that potential power in the Bill. Regarding the type of document, the Government’s policy remains as stated. We are for photographic identification.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry to labour the point, but can the Minister write to us on this? It is one thing for him to say what the Government’s policy is but what the law says is another. The issue here is whether that power would require documents which are added to be photo ID documents or whether they could be any other item on the list by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, in his Amendment 80. I am offering the Minister a possible way out in due course for accepting the noble Lord’s amendment by the back door.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this lengthy debate, and the Minister for his detailed responses. I am sure that there are areas of these amendments that we will return to on Report but for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Elections Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Monday 21st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the figures that the noble Lord gave will of course be of concern to the Committee and to any reasonable person following our proceedings. I have just been reading the Ballot Act 1872, Section 2 of which makes it clear that the vote shall be secret. It makes no reference to anybody conducting a voter and is particularly scrupulous, because of the great concern that there might be intervention by public authorities, that the presiding officers and staff in polling stations are kept completely apart from the act of voting; all they can do is check that the official mark has been made. The noble Lord’s point is well made, whether it is the Electoral Commission or the Secretary of State—although one would hope that the Secretary of State would be acting on the Electoral Commission’s advice on this matter anyway.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I will follow on from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, on undue influence. I think that a large part of this stems from Richard Mawrey’s judgments in the Tower Hamlets case. Anybody who has not experienced what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has clearly seen in places such as Bradford and Kirklees and I witnessed in Tower Hamlets will not appreciate what one is talking about, which is a serious problem. The first time I went to an election in Tower Hamlets a friend of mine, Councillor Peter Golds, to whom my noble friend Lord True referred, identified this: “See those people there? See that person there?” We are talking about people standing 100 metres to 150 metres away from a polling station. They walk alongside people going to vote. They stop people going into the polling station. When complaints are made to the police, the police feel that they are powerless to intervene. Anybody who has not experienced that sort of undue influence cannot appreciate the intimidation involved. I welcome the clause and the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, because it is an important change to electoral law.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the underlying issue here clearly might lead to concern in certain circumstances, but the point I took the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, to be making is that this is a very new category of injury. I have never seen in legislation before the concept of “spiritual injury” or individuals being placed under “spiritual pressure”. Could the Minister give us any precedents for these terms in legislation so that we can get some idea as to what other matters they have referred and how they might actually be applied?

Although we can understand the issue, how do we define what counts as spiritual pressure? If, for example, a religious group put out literature supporting one candidate or another, as often happens, would that count as undue spiritual pressure? There could be a freedom of speech issue here, which I do not think we want to get into, so it would be useful if the Minister could explain to us other contexts in which this has been used so that we can get some idea of what a proportionate judgment on “spiritual injury” and “undue spiritual pressure” might be.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I want to follow on from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, because his concerns were also mine. I am not clear what the definition of some of these issues would be in law and how they would be taken by the courts. Are there issues like this in legislation elsewhere and has there been interpretation by the courts, particularly regarding spiritual injury? For example, if someone was to stand up in a Catholic church and ask for people not to vote for candidates who supported abortion, would that constitute spiritual injury? Would that be undue spiritual pressure in determining which way people vote?

This is a very finely balanced issue, and I have not come across it before. Therefore, the Minister needs to explain very specifically where the lines and the boundaries are. It is a balance between people having the right to freedom of speech and of faith—I say that as somebody who does not have a religious faith—and the issue of them not being unduly influenced or forced to go against what they believe in. It would be really interesting to hear a clear definition and clear examples from the Dispatch Box for us to be able to determine exactly what this means in legislation.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I shall give my noble friend an American example, which has been debated in the United States very recently. There have been Catholic bishops who have suggested that President Biden should be denied communion, as a Catholic, because he is not prepared to be sufficiently anti-abortion. That, it seems to me, would be undue spiritual influence—although the spectacle of a Catholic bishop or archbishop being prosecuted for undue spiritual influence would be quite an interesting one.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I will elaborate on the noble Lord’s point. There is a difference here, in the ordinary reading of the words, between pressure and intimidation. I took the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, to be referring to intimidation, which is clearly something that we want to guard against. But what constitutes spiritual pressure? As noble Lords have just said, would a sermon in a church constitute pressure? A reasonable person might think that it would; after all, it is not serving much of a purpose if there is no pressure. This is a lay man speaking, but I think there is a difference between pressure and intimidation. We want to guard against intimidation, but we absolutely do not want to curb freedom of religious speech.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

This is unexpectedly lively, but the focus really is on new sub-paragraph (3)(e). I think most of us would say that there is, if you like, a simple lay person’s interpretation of new sub-paragraph (3)(a), (b), (c), (d) and, for that matter, the catch-all of new sub-paragraph (3)(f), which is

“any other act designed to intimidate a person”.

In the light of new sub-paragraph (3)(f), it may be that the difficulties of new sub-paragraph (3)(e) are best avoided by their omission, because if such spiritual injury was demonstrated, it would come under new sub-paragraph (3)(f).

I just point out that the preceding activities have “using or threatening”, “damaging or threatening”, “causing or threatening”, but new sub-paragraph (3)(e) has “causing spiritual injury”; not “threatening” to cause spiritual injury. Obviously, it depends on one’s personal understanding of what spiritual injury might consist of, but the threat is surely going to be offered far more often than the reality will be delivered, if I may put it in those terms, although it does not mean that it is not effective. There are some problems in the straightforward interpretation of what new sub-paragraph (3)(e) really says, why it does not say “threatening” to cause, as does new sub-paragraph (3)(c) and (d), for instance, and why it is necessary, separate from the catch-all of new sub-paragraph (3)(f):

“doing any other act designed to intimidate a person”.

I want to bring a little bit of local colour to new sub-paragraph (4)(e). In 1992, I stood for the Liberal Democrats in Hazel Grove. On the Sunday before polling day, every Catholic church in the constituency had a letter read out from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, which clearly expressed the view that a vote for me would be a major spiritual error. I failed to win that seat by 923 votes. I do not attribute the result to that letter, but noble Lords will understand that I had a sense of grievance for some time afterwards that this letter had been read out.

This brings me to my second critique of new sub-paragraph (4)(e)—it is a little bit in the eye of the beholder. If that provision had been there in 1992, I would have gone straight to the returning officer to say that this was a clear case. It would be an invitation for people to complain about things which were in fact simply within the bounds of free speech, fair comment, and so on—even if it was unfair in the opinion of the recipient.

There is a double problem. First, what is “spiritual injury”? Secondly, do we mean causing it, or threatening to cause it? Do we think that the injury is to the voter who is deterred from voting for a candidate, or to the candidate by virtue of the voter not supporting them? I suggest that we are not very clear what we are trying to pin down. The Minister might like to carefully consider what the disbenefit would be of removing new sub-paragraph (4)(e) and simply relying on new sub-paragraph (4)(f) to deal with cases where “spiritual injury”—or threats of it—was part of the reason there had been intimidation.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that these explanations are helpful to your Lordships. I repeat that the balance has to be articulated, and has always been articulated, in case law, alongside more recent protections provided through the European Convention on Human Rights.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I was not absolutely clear from what the Minister said whether the phrase “undue spiritual pressure” exists in existing legislation. He may not have the answer to that, but could he write to us about it?

[Lord True (Con)]

Yes, I had better write at this hour. I had it somewhere, but I have lost it in the folder. I will certainly write to the noble Lord. I tried to answer the question. If I have not, I will write; sorry.

Retained European Union Law

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is of course right in saying that retained EU law was brought on to our statute book for reasons of convenience and a smooth transition. It does not mean that it can never change; indeed, it must change, because that is how we get the benefits of reform and change after leaving the European Union. That is the process we intend to begin. As I have said before, I do not think that it makes sense for rules which never had proper scrutiny in this House to require full dress processes to remove them. The way they were incorporated was not normal in terms of parliamentary procedure, and therefore we should look at other ways of dealing with the consequences.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, in the spirit of good will, could I wish the Minister a very happy Christmas? When he reads A Christmas Carol, who does he like most? Is it the ghost of Christmas past, when he was a huge enthusiast for the European Union? Is it the ghost of Christmas present, when, like Mr Scrooge, he carries his own low temperature always about with him? Or is it—I hope—the ghost of Christmas future, when we rejoin the European Union and he can buy all his nieces and nephews glorious presents in the single market and customs union?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his good will, and I extend good will to all Members of this House. If I am forced into a false choice, it will be Christmas future, because I believe that our future outside the European Union is a great one. I must say that I have not noticed any difficulty in access to products from the European Union, and our exports to the European Union are continuing well. I am sure we will prosper on that basis.

EU Relations

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. We are beginning that process. Obviously, we do not wish to pre-judge whether Article 16 is used and, as I said, we want to proceed with predictability, certainty and clarity, setting out the case if we do use Article 16, so there will be time to adapt and to deal with any measures if it comes to that point. We wish to provide legal certainty, clarity and the ability to deal with the situation and not to produce instability with sudden changes or surprise mechanisms. Predictability, clarity and certainty are the watchwords.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, has the Minister noted that polls now show a lead of about 10% for Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland? Does he think that that might have something to do with his Brexit policy over the last few years? How much higher does he think that lead might go if he, as my noble friend Lord Liddle says, detonates the Northern Ireland protocol, triggers Article 16 and begins a long trade war with the European Union?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

It is probably not helpful for me to get into speculating about what polls may or may not show about outcomes months or years from now. To be honest, I am not sure there is a very direct connection between our Brexit policy and the rise of Sinn Féin in Ireland, which I think is due to quite a wide range of other factors and has parallels with what is happening across Europe. However, I defer to the noble Lord’s judgment; he has been to the Sinn Féin conference and I have not.

Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Impact on Trade

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, the difficulty we have with the protocol is not so much the sovereignty issue, because the territorial integrity of the UK and the integrity of the internal market of the UK are very clearly protected in the protocol, but the difficulty it has generated in movements of goods and trade within the United Kingdom. If the protocol was to work, it would have required very sensitive handling. Unfortunately, it has not had that sensitive handling, and therefore we have a political problem.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the new EU ambassador to the United Kingdom presented his credentials to Her Majesty the Queen earlier this week. Afterwards there was a reception at which many Members of the House were present. The Minister was not present, nor was any representative of the Government, which—as a senior diplomat pointed out to me—would have been utterly inconceivable at an equivalent reception for a new ambassador from the United States or any of our other principal allies. I know that the Minister has now decided to set himself up as an anti-diplomat rather than a diplomat and unlearn all the arts and craft of his trade that he had accumulated over the previous 20 or 30 years, but does he not think that the interests of the United Kingdom would be well served by him once again becoming a diplomat, rather than gratuitously insulting our European partners?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I very much wished to go to that reception. Unfortunately, as colleagues know, I was not well on Tuesday and could not attend, but my office was there and represented me. I wished to avoid any apparent discourtesy, and the ambassador has acknowledged that. It is very important that we maintain the normal diplomatic arrangements between our countries and territories, and it is absolutely my intention that we should do that.

Brexit Opportunities

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport has of course set out proposals in this area, and I am confident that they will deal with the situation over time. My noble friend’s general point is a good one. There is often a tendency to dismiss problems until they are evident, rather than get ahead of them. A degree of responsiveness, perhaps, via our standing commission—but not only through that—should help us to reap the benefits of the ability to move quickly, which we did not have in the European Union.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, what would the Minister regard as the essential benchmark of success for the reforms he set out today in a year’s time?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, the purpose of these reforms is, in the long run, to improve the productivity of the UK by putting in place regulations that are tailored to our conditions, rather than the average. So the goal of this Government is to improve productivity, growth and prosperity for everybody after Brexit. That is obviously one of the metrics on which the British people will make their judgment when the time arises.

Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord always tells me that my Answers are unsatisfactory; I do not always agree with him. As it stands, the convention, which has not been adhered to by the overwhelming majority of EU nations, would not, in our view, allow for the appropriate protection of sensitive information or of journalistic independence, as Parliament intended when it passed the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister help the House? Can he explain what it is about releasing the official documentation concerning the £37 billion test and trace scheme and the £12.5 billion of PPE contracts—including the VIP route, which has been roundly criticised by the National Audit Office—that might conceivably make the Government reluctant to sign this convention?

[Lord True (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have given the House the reasons for the Government not wishing to adhere to the convention. However, the United Kingdom Government are absolutely committed to transparency and the principles behind the convention and recognise the work done by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in this sphere. We routinely disclose information well beyond our freedom of information obligations and in line with many of the provisions of the convention.

Brexit Opportunities Unit

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Adonis]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what salary attaches to the new post of Director of the Brexit Opportunities Unit at the Cabinet Office.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) (Con)]

My Lords, the Cabinet Office has advertised the post of director of the Brexit opportunities unit with a salary range of £93,000 to £120,000. That is within the Cabinet Office’s pay scale of £93,000 to £162,500 for a director-level appointment and appropriate for the calibre of candidate that the role requires. The director of the unit will lead an ambitious programme of reform and address many of the most important questions facing the UK.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I am thinking of applying for this job because it is such an exciting opportunity. I would be prepared to do it for nothing; I was wondering what the Minister might think of my application. May I give him my pitch for the job? The biggest opportunity for the director of the Brexit opportunities unit is the opportunity to reapply to join the single market and the customs union so that we can eliminate trade barriers with the European Union, eliminate the need for any trade barriers north-south or east-west in respect of Northern Ireland and extend once again to the British people the great opportunity to be able to travel, study, work, settle, live and form relationships across the whole of their continent and not be locked up in Boris Johnson’s Brexit Britain. Does the Minister find that an exciting prospectus?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his job application. Of course, it is open to him to apply if he wishes, although it will not be for me to judge whether he meets all the criteria for the job. It will not surprise him to know that I disagree with his assessment of where we stand as a country. Brexit will be hugely in the interests of everybody in this country as we take forward the exciting opportunities to reform our rules, take back control of our legislation and run our country as we wish.

Civil Society Forum: UK Delegation

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, we will certainly reflect on the issues that the noble Viscount raised. There is, of course, a provision in the agreement for a partnership forum between Parliaments, work on which is also moving forward effectively. It is the nature of civil society that it does not need the Government’s permission to develop such links and to work effectively with fora established under the treaties. We certainly hope that that would happen.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, it is six months since the noble Lord’s Brexit deal and this institution, like the border arrangements in Northern Ireland, still is not functioning properly and may never do so. Has he had the chance to reflect on the evidence he gave to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee earlier this week, where he said that he could not have been expected to foresee the problems with the Northern Ireland border, only to have the chairman point out that almost everybody else had foreseen them, including the noble Lord, Lord Barwell, who was Theresa May’s chief of staff, and almost everyone who commented on this issue in the House? Does he appreciate that he is coming to look a bit like Anthony Eden in the Suez crisis in perpetrating an escalating crisis, and undermining our foreign policy and our standing in the world, which is apparent to everybody except himself?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, obviously I do not accept the conclusion. The noble Lord is oversimplifying what I said at the Foreign Affairs Committee. It is precisely because we knew we had agreed something exceptional, complex and difficult that we built in consent arrangements, and why we had a reasonable expectation of the arrangements operating pragmatically. That has not turned out to be the case. There has turned out to be a very significant chilling effect on Great British businesses moving goods to Northern Ireland. We knew that there would be such an effect. It has turned out to be very much stronger and much more rapid. I do not think there is anything unreasonable in learning from experience when we deal with such a sensitive and delicate situation and trying to find a more reasonable balance as we go forward.

Vice-President of the European Commission

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Thursday 29th April 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Adonis]

To ask the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) when he will next meet Maroš Šefčovič, Vice-President of the European Commission.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) (Con)]

My Lords, I last met Vice-President Šefčovič informally, in Brussels, on 15 April. That was principally to discuss the Northern Ireland protocol. No date for a future meeting has yet been fixed, but we and our teams are in regular contact about a range of issues, regarding both the withdrawal agreement and the trade and co-operation agreement. I am confident that we will meet again soon.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for meeting me and other noble Lords recently to discuss the question of an SPS veterinary agreement, which is causing such difficulties for our shellfish and agricultural exports. We discussed the possibility of an equivalence regime, which would continue until either we or the EU found it unsatisfactory because of further changes. It seemed to me that pragmatic ideas like this might be a way forward. When the Minister meets the Commissioner, might he discuss them further?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, these ideas are very much on the agenda in our discussions, although the differences between our position on the subject and that of the European Union remain significant. Nevertheless, we hope to have a constructive dialogue and see whether there is room to explore this further. As I have noted, the EU has been reluctant to move forward to an equivalence-based agreement, but we remain open to that and hope that it will also be in due course.