Voter Identification Scheme Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Andrew Jones
Main Page: Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough)Department Debates - View all Andrew Jones's debates with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
(7 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Rachel Maclean
I thank the hon. Gentleman for sharing his really practical and useful wisdom from the policy that has been rolled out in Northern Ireland—a valued part of our United Kingdom—where it has been working very well for many years. I note that a much smaller list of documents is used in Northern Ireland and that that has worked effectively. In the Electoral Commission’s recent 2021 public opinion tracker survey, not a single respondent from Northern Ireland reported that they did not have ID and had found themselves unable to vote.
Of course, we must always look at the sensible and practical recommendations from the Electoral Commission. We will continue to do that. Before this roll-out, we put a significant amount of investment into working with civil society and charities. We have made funding available for communications campaigns. It is just a shame that the Labour party and Liberal Democrats did not take the opportunity to amplify our messages among their own constituents. We all have a shared responsibility in this place to amplify messages and communicate effectively, particularly to ethnic minority and disabled voters. I know that is what I did ahead of local elections; I wonder what they did.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Has my hon. Friend the Minister received representations from any colleagues in the House, particularly from Opposition parties, about the arrangements for voter ID in Northern Ireland? After all, those were introduced by the Labour Government of the time and the arrangement is used by Labour at its own internal elections.
Rachel Maclean
My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on, as always. If Labour Members now think that voter identification is so wrong, why are they not campaigning to repeal their own laws? Why should electoral fraud be tolerated in Great Britain but not in Northern Ireland? Do they really believe that most European countries, which require voter ID, engage in so-called voter suppression? They seem to want to take us back into the European Union across all areas of policy; perhaps this is their latest ploy to take us back into the EU.