Elections Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to take part in this hugely rich and informative debate that has so comprehensively torn to shreds the Bill and the methods by which it arrived in your Lordships’ House. It seems unfair to pick out one speech among so many brilliant ones, but I will highlight the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, on such a crucial issue. On the global stage, should a nation emerging from dictatorship produce a constitution with an electoral commission under government direction, we would waggle our fingers and say, “Have another go”. I must warn the noble and learned Lord that I intend to ensure that his speech gets as wide a circulation as possible. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, may warn him about the potential consequences of that.

That leaves me with a challenge for I adhere to the principle of trying never to rise in your Lordships’ House unless I have something different and substantive to add. I begin with a statement that may come as a shock. I thank the Minister and the Government for this Bill and welcome its arrival in this House. I welcome it because, in bringing up all these issues—as the Government have found with Clause 9 of the Nationality and Borders Bill—and seeking to make disastrously bad elements of our current outdated, undemocratic, dysfunctional systems worse, while seeking to follow the Trumpian path of populist destruction, it provides us with a wonderful opportunity to show how much we need to radically transform our current system.

Those of us who understand that the people meant what they said in 2016, that they wanted to take back control—control of the planning in their communities, including protecting green spaces; control of their lives through decent jobs with a real living wage; control of Parliament, with a Parliament that actually reflects the view of the people, not just the 44% of those who voted handing over 100% of the power to Boris Johnson—now have a great opportunity. This is a stage to present all those proposals for making the UK a democracy.

This is rather like a bear that has dipped its paws into a bee’s nest and hopes to run away with some honey before its residents can muster a response. Yes, my use of that simile is deliberate, given the issues I raised earlier in Oral Questions over the Prime Minister’s inconsistent responses to my honourable friend Caroline Lucas’s questions in the other place about the Russia report. The Government are going to find that they have raised a swarm of opposition, and one that is determined to rebuild this hive into something stronger, smarter and more efficient, fit for the 21st century. This afternoon I saw the giant billboard from the Democracy Defence Coalition, involving groups including Unlock Democracy and Make Votes Matter, setting out all the things we can use this Bill to make better. Noble Lords who are in Millbank House and who looked out of the window will have seen it, too.

I am going to take a couple of minutes to create a portrait of what we could do to create a decent modern constitution for the UK. First, because they are the future and the generation that will live it, we should have votes at 16. We have them in Scotland and Wales; why should England’s young people miss out? I talk to a lot of 16 and 17 year-olds. They are at least as well informed as the average 60 year-old, and they are experts on being a 16 year-old today in a way that no one who speaks for them in either Chamber can be—and certainly, I am afraid, those in your Lordships’ House are not.

Next there is automatic voter registration. I follow the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, on this. Many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Moore, in his maiden speech—and I must welcome him to the House as a fellow former newspaper editor—noted the gradual expansion of the franchise over history. The final logical step, making sure that everyone actually has a vote, is automatic voter registration, so you do not have to jump through those mysterious hoops. So many people naturally think, if they are on the council tax roll or enrolled in a university, living in official accommodation, that the state knows where they are and who they are. The voices who we must hear most, those struggling in poverty, suffering discrimination and exclusion from society, are the ones who are least likely to be able to navigate the current system. That is obviously the absolute reverse step of voter ID, which is restricting the franchise, going backwards. There is no way the Government can justify this voter suppression tactic, taken straight from the US far right. When only 30% of registered voters turn out in council elections and less than 70% in general elections, there is no justification for acting to reduce the turn out even further.

As the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, said, we need a proportional system for electing both the Commons and the Lords. We share the current first past the post system with Belarus. That is not really a recommendation, is it? The Minister in his introduction suggested that PR was too difficult. I say that it is first past the post that is extraordinarily difficult for voters. They have to guess how everyone else in their constituency is going to vote and try and adjust their vote accordingly, very often voting for the party they hate second most to stop the party they hate most getting in. We also need to see decentralisation, power taken out of here and put back into communities.

I finish by circling back to those Russian bears. We have to talk about political fund raising. We need extremely tight restrictions on individual and company donations to parties and campaigns. A maximum of £500 sounds about right. The Green Party in 2015 was a pioneer in crowd-funding political campaigns. Many thousands of people threw hard earned £5, £10, £20 to support our efforts. Combined with state funding for politics, that is how we get the politics of the people rather than a politics of the plutocrats.

The Minister said he wanted a system fit for the modern age. I am happy to work with people around your Lordships’ House to send the Bill out of this House looking exactly like that. It is a great opportunity.