Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts
Monday 4th September 2023

(6 months, 3 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Laura Trott Portrait Laura Trott
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Let me reassure my right hon. Friend and her constituents that asylum seekers are given no recourse to public funds. They are given payment for their food and shelter, but they are unable to claim benefits. Pensioners in her constituency will receive a state pension, if they qualify, which for the first time is worth on average more than £200 per week or over £10,000 a year. Pensioners who have not built up sufficient contributions may be eligible for pension credits, worth on average £3,500 per year, to top up their income. They are also eligible to receive the cost of living payment, if they ever receive pension credit, and the pensioner cost of living payment.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
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Over the summer, I held events in villages across Wyre in my constituency. I was approached by many pensioners who are suffering because of the cost of living crisis; pension credit is just not plugging the gap. At my “Chat with Cat” event in Pilling, a constituent asked me why 400,000 more pensioners are living in poverty than when Labour left office. Will the Minister answer that question?

Laura Trott Portrait Laura Trott
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There are 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty than when Labour left office.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts
Monday 19th June 2023

(9 months, 2 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Guy Opperman Portrait Guy Opperman
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With great respect, I think we do publish data on all aspects of the Department for Work and Pensions’ programmes, and I addressed this matter in great detail in front of the right hon. Gentleman and the Select Committee recently.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
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10. What steps his Department is taking to tackle in-work poverty.

Grahame Morris Portrait Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
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17. What steps his Department is taking to tackle in-work poverty.

Mel Stride Portrait The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
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In-work progression is the best way of improving the earnings potential of those who are in work, which is why we are bringing hundreds of thousands more people into the kind of support that will develop that.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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I wonder whether the Secretary of State can support me with some casework that I am working on at the moment. My constituent is working a minimum wage job and tells me that she is frightened about what will happen. She is 68 years old, but due to errors in the state pension, she is not receiving that yet, and we are finding that there are permanent backlog pressures with the Pension Service. Can the Secretary of State help me get my 68-year-old constituent out of the in-work poverty bracket and receiving her state pension? I am happy to share the details of the case with the Secretary of State.

Mel Stride Portrait Mel Stride
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If the hon. Lady would like to share those details with me, I will make sure that I and the Minister for Pensions, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) will have a close look at the case she raises.

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Mims Davies Portrait Mims Davies
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The Government are supporting the private Member’s Bill that aims to streamline CMS enforcement processes. The CMS will not hesitate to use robust enforcement measures where someone is consistently refusing to meet their obligation towards their children. I am happy to look at that case and ask my colleague in the Lords to look at it.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
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Why is statutory sick pay in this country so much lower than European comparators?

Tom Pursglove Portrait Tom Pursglove
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I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the issue of statutory sick pay, and, of course, we always keep these matters under review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts
Monday 6th March 2023

(1 year ago)

Commons Chamber
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Guy Opperman Portrait Guy Opperman
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The hon. Gentleman is right. I agree with him; there is life in the old dog yet, as they say. It is important that we continue to make the case that employment for the over-50s should be supported by all employers.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
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6. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the fall in the level of single-parent employment between 2019 and 2022.

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Portrait Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
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15. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the fall in the level of single-parent employment between 2019 and 2022.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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On Friday, I visited my local citizens advice bureau at its new offices on George Street in Lancaster, where I heard at first hand of the challenges that single parents are having with the amount of the childcare element of universal credit being capped at the level set in 2005 and with its being paid in arrears. What steps has the Minister taken to ensure that benefits go up in line with the cost of childcare and to look at paying this element up front?

Mims Davies Portrait Mims Davies
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I thank the hon. Lady for that question. The UC childcare element can be used to top up a claimant’s eligible free childcare hours if more hours are worked and more childcare is required. We also use the flexible support fund to support those up-front costs, as we heard earlier. However, I would like to take this opportunity to talk about employers; this is not solely about what the Government can do on our own to help lone parents. Job design, the opportunity to progress and flexible work are really important too, as is the opportunity to return and progress. We cannot do this on our own.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts
Monday 23rd January 2023

(1 year, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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John McNally Portrait John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)
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18. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of Government support for pensioners in the context of increases in the cost of living.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
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20. What recent assessment he has made of the impact of inflation on pensioners.

Laura Trott Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)
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The Government have provided a record amount of support for pensioners this winter. More than 8 million households have received a £300 cost of living payment in addition to other support. Both the state pension and pension credit will be uprated from April by 10.1% in line with inflation. That means that for the first time the full amount of the new state pension will be more than £10,000 per year.

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Laura Trott Portrait Laura Trott
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May I remind the hon. Gentleman that under the Conservatives, absolute pensioner poverty has gone down and the state pension has gone up. This Government do deliver and will continue to deliver for pensioners across the United Kingdom.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Around 1,800 pensioner households in Lancaster and Fleetwood are eligible for but do not claim pension credit. With the rising cost of living, many more pensioners are struggling, so will the Minister lend her support to my campaign to encourage my constituents to check on older friends and relatives to see whether they are eligible for pension credit, and to support them to apply if they are eligible?

Laura Trott Portrait Laura Trott
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I pay tribute to the work that the hon. Lady is doing in her constituency to boost take-up of pension credit. I would love to work with her and all across the House on this important topic that we are all focused on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts
Monday 5th December 2022

(1 year, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Tom Pursglove Portrait Tom Pursglove
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I am hugely grateful to my hon. Friend, who is of course a distinguished former Minister for disabled people and whose views on these matters I listen to incredibly carefully. We announced in “Shaping future support: the health and disability green paper” that we will test a new severe disability group, so that those with severe and lifelong conditions can benefit from a simplified process to access PIP, employment and support allowance and universal credit without needing to go through a face-to-face assessment or frequent reassessments. We will consider the test results, once they are complete, to influence thinking on the next stages of this work.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
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18. What steps his Department is taking to support pensioners with increases in the cost of living.

David Evennett Portrait Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
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22. What steps his Department is taking to support pensioners with increases in the cost of living.

Laura Trott Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)
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All pensioner households are in the process of receiving an extra £300 to help them cover the rising cost of energy this winter. For those in receipt of pension credit, the second cost of living payment of £324 was issued in November.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Rural pensioners face additional challenges to the cost of living crisis, and I have recently heard from constituents in the villages of Forton and Winmarleigh who are still waiting for information from the Government on the payment of the alternative fuel payment scheme, as they are off grid. Additionally, the removal of the Bay Plus Megarider bus ticket has increased the price of bus tickets, which may not directly affect those pensioners, but where they are supporting adult children and school-age children in their households, it is impacting on their family budgets. What steps are the Government taking to support pensioners who live in rural parts?

Laura Trott Portrait Laura Trott
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I recognise a lot of the challenges that the hon. Lady mentions, and this is why we are giving pensioners £850, and people on pension credit £1,500, to get through this winter.

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Mel Stride Portrait Mel Stride
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The hon. Lady will know that the level of 25% she refers to has been decreasing through time; it was 40% not that long ago, then 30% and now it is 25%. It was paused altogether during the pandemic, and the experience then was that debt started to increase among claimants, in many cases in a way that was not helpful to the claimant. It is an important principle that, where people are in debt, we work with them to make sure we get them out of debt through time, but I accept that we need to do that with great care, hence the various elements of the process that I described earlier.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
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What measures are the Government taking to speed up repayments to the 200,000 pensioners who have yet to be compensated for the historical underpayments in the state pension?

Laura Trott Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)
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We have hired more than 1,000 people to look at that. It was a mistake and we are working as hard as we can to rectify it as quickly as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts
Monday 21st March 2022

(2 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mims Davies Portrait Mims Davies
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I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. There are currently over 1.2 million vacancies. On jobs and vacancies, Opposition Members do not appear to understand that people are better off in work than they are on benefits. Let us get to the point: there are key sectors in this country that need people. To tackle this challenge, we at the Department for Work and Pensions are stepping up, with Way to Work bringing people into our jobcentres and helping claimants to change their lives.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
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While the Secretary of State was enjoying our warm Lancashire hospitality in Blackpool this weekend, just a few miles up the coast in Fleetwood, my constituent Patricia was emailing me as her MP. She is a disabled pensioner and says:

“The state pension does not keep up with rises in cost of living or inflation…Fuel costs are crippling, as I don’t move and feel the cold but we have to be careful with the heating. I need carers but their costs rise faster than the annual increase.”

What does the Secretary of State have to say to my constituent?

Guy Opperman Portrait Guy Opperman
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I urge the hon. Lady’s constituent to contact her local authority to see whether there is local authority access to funds. As of April, there will be £9.1 billion of energy support from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities fund. There is also pension credit and efforts are being made on a whole host of levels. I have listed three clear examples of access to cash for individuals such as her constituent.

Cost of Living Increases: Pensioners

Cat Smith Excerpts
Monday 21st March 2022

(2 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
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Thank you for calling me so early in the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I want to begin by talking about energy bills and putting on record my thanks to Helen and Joanna at the North Lancashire citizens advice bureau, whom I spoke to today specifically about energy bills for my older constituents. I thank them and all the other staff at the CAB, who support my constituents right across Lancaster and Fleetwood on a whole matter of issues, as people often feel they have nowhere else to go.

On energy bills, one thing that has not been mentioned much is something that affects my rural constituents. I have been approached in the past couple of weeks by a couple in the Ellel area of Lancaster who have turned off their oil-fired heating as there is no price cap on heating oil and with the prices of oil trebling they have been left particularly vulnerable. Often such people are in poorly insulated houses off the grid, and I call on the Minister to do something to support rural pensioners who are feeling this acutely.

These issues are not just being faced in the rural areas of my constituency. A pensioner I was speaking to on Russell Grange Lane in Fleetwood, a much more urban area, is struggling with the rising energy bills. By way of an example, let me say that she lives alone and is receiving the state pension, and her gas bill has risen recently from £85 a month to £114 a month. That is an increase of 34%, but her pension is going to rise by only 3.1%, or about £5.50. She is really concerned about how she is going to be able to afford food, as food prices are going up, and whether she is going to be able to make ends meet. Pensioners spend twice as much of their money on energy bills as the under-30s, so this is a cost felt acutely by pensioners.

Helen told me that we are now in the worst situation since she joined the CAB in 1992. She said that in most cases there was almost nothing they could do to help clients whose benefits or pensions are not enough to live off and that they could only refer them for emergency food parcels. They have then exhausted that limited charitable help available. That is probably reflected right across the country. I do not think that Lancaster and Fleetwood is particularly unique in experiencing that. What has changed in the six years I have represented the constituency is the number of pensioners approaching me to say how much they are struggling. I have noticed that increasing in the past couple of years and, in particular, in the past couple of weeks. A man approached me in Macbeth Road to tell me that he felt utterly betrayed by the breaking of the triple lock on pensions and how it means that his pension will not keep up with rising costs. People feel like this not just about energy costs and pensions, but about, for example, the betrayal on the TV licence for the over-75s, which was a point raised recently with me by a constituent from Agnew Road.

With almost one in five pensioners living in poverty—of course, that will be many more if this Government do not take action—I will continue to support my constituents as best as I can, as will my local food banks, the citizens advice bureaux, churches and charities such as Age UK Lancashire. I will do things such as promote the awareness of pension credit. With around 850,000 older people currently missing out on that benefit, many of them will be in my Lancaster and Fleetwood constituency, and I will do what I can to raise awareness.

As Martin Lewis said on television yesterday, we can only do so much to try to teach people to save money if the amounts are getting smaller, bills are going up and petrol prices are rising, because the rest, frankly, is politics. I wanted to speak in this evening’s debate to highlight the fact that this effect has been felt right across my constituency, from the urban Warren area of Fleetwood right through to rural areas in Ellel just outside Lancaster, which makes me think that it is probably being felt right across the country. We now need Government action to tackle pensioner poverty, which is acute and real.

None Portrait Several hon. Members rose—
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Elections Bill (Third sitting)

Cat Smith Excerpts
None Portrait The Chair
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Thank you.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
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Q I thank the witnesses for giving up their time this morning to allow this Committee to find out a little more about your thoughts on this legislation. I am going to make the slight assumption that all the witnesses have had the experience of being an overseas elector. Could you all outline your own experiences of being an overseas elector, in terms of being able to receive and return a ballot paper in time to make the deadline for the election? I ask because we have seen evidence showing that a lot of overseas electors’ votes do not get counted because they do not get returned in time. Mr Cunningham, would you like to go first and outline any experiences that you have had that the Committee would benefit from knowing about?

George Cunningham: It is important that we try to take as much of the pressure off the councils having to do this and try and automate things as much as possible. Effectively, using a purely postal system is denying thousands the ability to vote and in some countries, such as Indonesia and parts of Africa, there is no postal service worth talking about. The outcome is that British citizens living closest to the UK get a chance to vote, but it is denied in far-flung places. If you imagine the numbers in Australia, for instance, of British citizens, you are basically excluding almost a million over there out of the 5.5 million or so British citizens abroad.

The problem is accentuated further with the abolition of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act and a possible shortening of the time period between the proroguing of Parliament and election day. There is also an issue—and this is personal experience—of prepaid envelopes. In some countries, local postal offices that do not really get the information do not accept them as prepaid. They just chuck them in the bin because they do not have local or national stamps on. So it might be best not to have them prepaid so that post offices see that the correct postage stamps have been put on for mailing.

As coming up with a secure system online voting does not seem yet to be on the cards, our embassies and consulates could get involved, as is the case with other countries. A few days could be saved if they were posted out by the embassy on the day the election was called, based on the register held there. Alternatively, ballot papers could be downloaded from the UK website, limited to those who have registered online via the gov.uk website, and then mailed back, because that cuts in half the amount of time for the stuff to come back.

Proxy votes are not adequate because we are talking about people who have been away for more than 15 years so they have lost a lot of friends, perhaps even through death. We have to do the best we can to speed up this whole process, and also to reduce the pressure on councils.

None Portrait The Chair
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Thank you. Heather, would you like to add anything?

Heather Harper: Only that, although I have been an expat for many years, I have not personally voted from overseas. However, having worked on these matters with so many of our overseas voters, I would say that I am very strongly supportive of the Bill in its current state because it addresses so many of the issues that have arisen from the complaints, in just some of the things that are addressed, and the difficulty in overseas voting. What is in the Bill is very streamlined and will increase overseas voters and make it much simpler and easier to vote—or register, rather.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Q I have one follow-up question. There have been concerns raised that this legislation, by expanding the franchise for overseas electors and removing the 15-year limit, would also allow permissible donors. I was just wondering if the witnesses had any thoughts on whether those two issues should be separated: the right to vote and the issues of keeping transparency in regard to money in British politics separate. Do you have any thoughts, Mr Cunningham, on the separation of financial donations and the franchise?

George Cunningham: They are two separate issues. It is important to recognise that a lot of people living abroad are pensioners or teachers—they are all kinds of people from ordinary walks of life like ourselves. They are all equal in front of the law and in front of God, let us say. That is one issue. There is a separate issue concerning the financing aspects, which, of course, many of us consider to be very unsatisfactory, but I do not think it has affected things enormously. The fact that companies can donate and so many companies that are foreign are on the stock exchange and de facto foreign, and through their subsidiaries they can donate to the parties here: that is the critical issue that needs further addressing in a separate Bill. I think it should be disassociated from the Elections Bill.

None Portrait The Chair
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Heather, would you like to add anything to that?

Heather Harper: Yes, I would. Electoral law regarding donations to political parties is set out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which already allows British citizens on the electoral roll to donate to any party. UK nationals living overseas are not foreigners, and they should not be conflated with foreign donations. I do not see any significant effect on donations. It may increase our membership, which is £25 a year—quite honestly that is hard enough to get most of the time. Conservatives Abroad is not an organisation that solicits large donations; our emphasis is on engagement. There is already a robust a legal framework in place that bans foreign donations—I do not see any significant increase there. What is important now is to increase the awareness of voter registration.

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None Portrait The Chair
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Only one member of the Committee has indicated that they wish to ask a question, so I now call Cat Smith, the Opposition spokesperson, and then the Minister to ask a couple of catch-up questions.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Q It is good to have you with us, Anne, having resolved the technical issues. My opening question to the other panellists, before you joined us, was about the experience of voting as an overseas elector and delays in the postal system. Do you have any thoughts on how the Bill could be improved to ensure that overseas electors who have a ballot could return it in time for the close of poll?

Anne Wafer: I am very pleased to meet you, Cat. The last constituency where I was registered to vote may well have been Lancaster, your constituency, because that is where I went to university, and I would be very happy with that.

On problems, I have been abroad for more than 15 years, so I do not have a vote. I notice that the Bill will extend the vote for parliamentary elections, but it does not mention referenda. I think that is an important omission, because it is a big bone of contention for our members that we could not vote in the EU referendum. I did see some news that said we could vote, but then the same day I saw another piece of news saying they had decided we could not.

Brexit has affected our right to free movement within Europe and our right to bring home any European-born family members, for example, which is going to be much more difficult. A lot of people would have liked to return with partners, family members and foreign-born children, and maybe elderly parents who need care and do not want to be left behind, but that is much more difficult now. We would very much like to have voted in that referendum, although it probably would not have made any difference to the result. However, there could be future referenda, perhaps to rejoin or for regional assemblies, or anything like that, so we would like referenda to be included.

There will be quite a lot of bureaucracy involved. I feel as though I have been swotting for an exam that I never attended the classes for, because I have stepped in fairly last minute and I have not paid particular attention to the Bill before. However, I do know what our members’ opinions are, because they have been campaigning for a long time for voting rights to be extended to people who have been abroad for more than 15 years. One of our best known members is Harry Shindler, who lives in Italy and turned 100 in July. He has been campaigning for the extension of voting rights for a long time, and I am sure that some of you have worked with him—Heather, I have seen a photograph of you with him. He is still a very active member at 100 years old.

We are very strongly for this part of the Bill, but there are other parts that we are not so happy about. There will be quite a lot of bureaucracy involved. We are used to that, because anyone who has lived abroad has had to fill in forms for British bureaucracy, or the bureaucracy of whatever country they live in, but hopefully registration will be made much simpler for everyone.

I notice that there is a section on accessibility. Accessibility at polling stations does not affect us directly, but it does affect our family members, so we think that should be a lot stronger.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Q If I might interrupt slightly, Anne—I apologise—it might help if I direct some more specific questions to you, because I did ask a specific question to both the other witnesses this morning about political donations. Concerns have been raised about how extending the franchise also makes overseas electors permissible donors, with no time limit. Do you think there is merit in separating permissible donors from eligible electors?

Anne Wafer: That could be a concern, because the perception is that British people who live abroad are all wealthy and living in tax havens with lots of money. That is not necessarily true, certainly among our members. I have not studied that part of the Bill closely, but there does now seem to be a potential for wealthy people living abroad to be allowed to send huge amounts of money to their favoured political party. There needs to be some regulation of that. I cannot really say any more about it because I have not studied the details of exactly how that would work under the Bill, but yes, I would be concerned about that.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Q Very quickly, you told the Committee earlier that you left the UK in 1978 and are not entirely sure if or where you were registered when you left. You were asking how you could check that you were registered to vote, and there are no records, so do you recognise the potential for electoral fraud, given the lack of records going back more than 15 years?

Anne Wafer: I do not know. I study genealogy, and there are electoral registers going way back to the 19th century, so I wonder why there are no records, because that is news to me. I assumed there would be. There would need to be some proof that you had that connection and lived in a particular part of Britain. I am getting my pension from Britain, so that should be sufficient proof, for example. It is not a very big one—I am getting a tiny pension—because I left quite early, but I am getting one, so there should be an alternative way of proving that you had that connection and had lived there.

There are a lot of measures in the Bill on voter fraud, but there does not seem to be much evidence that it actually happens. I am sure there are ways to prevent it without disenfranchising people, which has a bigger effect on the electoral result than small amounts of voter fraud. As people who live abroad, we have to jump through so many hoops to sign up to register and get proxy votes, and I do not think the potential for voter fraud is very high. Obviously there need to be some protections in place, but it should not be too difficult to prove that you have lived in a place. If you have a pension from Britain or had a job in Britain, there must be some record that you lived there.

There should be some flexibility in what records could be provided if no record can be found that you were on the voting register, because we do not want to be disenfranchised on that account. Although I have lived abroad for a long time, I still have a lot of connections. I lived in Ireland before I came here, but I visit my family every year when I can—of course, the pandemic has prevented that—and take a strong interest in politics.

None Portrait The Chair
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Thank you, Anne. We are running out of time, so I would just like to squeeze the Minister in.

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Chloe Smith Portrait Chloe Smith
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Q Okay, thanks for that initial view. In that case, would you join me in letting the message go out from this Bill Committee and witnesses that we all want to encourage as many people as possible to register to vote and to participate?

Maurice Mcleod: I absolutely agree with that. I would go further. I do not really understand why you are not automatically registered. I remember turning 18; you get your national insurance number because going out to work and paying your national insurance and your tax are important rites of passage. I do not know why we do not do the same with voting. You should not have to apply to register to vote; you should be automatically registered.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Q Thank you Maurice for your time this morning. We have seen American civil rights groups campaigning quite strongly about the introduction in some US states of ID requirements to access the ballot. They have found that, when it comes to providing ID, some groups are finding it harder to prove their identity than others. In this country it has been very difficult for me to find out what level of ID people hold based on their race; it is not data that is held by the DVLA with driving licenses, nor the Home Office with passports. Can you share with the Committee your understanding of what groups are less likely to have photo ID?

Maurice Mcleod: You are right that part of the problem is that this data is not always readily available. The data I have found—the Government’s own data—says that while 76% of white people hold a form of relevant photo ID, such as a driver’s license or a passport, when it comes to black people, about half do: 47% do not hold one of those forms of ID. There are 11 million people in Briton who hold no form of photo identification. That drastically discourages people from voting. You are adding an unnecessary extra burden on people who we want to turn out and vote.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Q To break that down a little bit further, I have seen evidence that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities are also less likely to have ID. The free local voter card, proposed by this legislation, looks set to be delivered by local authorities. Do you have any insight into how people who are not resident in the same local authority for any length of time might have their access to those ID cards impacted?

Maurice Mcleod: You are very right to bring up the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. Of all of the communities that make up Briton, they are already among the groups that are most likely to be disenfranchised. You do not need to be a genius to work out that if you are moving around, and your residence is not set in one place, it makes it very hard to know who to engage with, and what needs to be done to get the ID that allows you to vote. It cannot be assumed that everyone has good links with their local authority and understands where they need to go.

Looking at other communities, you have to acknowledge that the slightly hostile way that we have dealt with migration means that there is nervousness among some communities, even with people who are perfectly legal and allowed to be here. Sometimes there is a nervousness about engaging with the authorities on anything other than something that is considered essential. Sadly, for a lot of people, voting is not something that they consider essential.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Q That final point links to my last question. You have alluded to a hostile environment, and a nervousness to engage with—what is seen as—an establishment. Do you think that the requirement to show voter ID will increase or decrease participation among black voters?

Maurice Mcleod: Without a doubt, I believe it will decrease participation. There is already a problem with getting people from minority communities to even register to vote. Now you have to register to vote, and you also need to find some form of voter ID to—as has been said—solve a problem that I am unsure anyone thinks exists. It is very hard to see the impact of this being anything other than voter suppression within those groups. There is certainly not any suggestion that this will increase voter turnout—I cannot see how you would even make that argument.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Thank you so much for your time.

Paul Bristow Portrait Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Q Maurice, it is nice to talk to you, and thank you for coming to the Committee. I note that you are a Labour councillor in Battersea and a self-confessed Corbynite, and that you previously described the Government as

“Diluting rights, denying racism, delegitimising protest, and diminishing voter turnout.”

You added:

“Anyone who doesn’t see a concerted campaign at work here simply isn’t looking.”

What is that concerted campaign?

Maurice Mcleod: We have had mention of what happened in America with voter suppression, the methods that some parts of the political machine have gone through and the fights to pull back the other way. I think that there is a concerted effort, first, to instil the idea that our voting system is not secure, that there is loads of fraud, that there are loads of people doing something dodgy and that people are cheating. As I have said, I do not really see much evidence of that. Our voting system is pretty trusted and robust. So first, there is this idea of bringing in a measure. When you bring in a measure in Parliament, people think, “Oh, there must be a reason that they’re doing this; it’s because there’s loads of fraud.” It undermines faith and trust in our democracy.

Secondly, as I have said, these measures also put an extra barrier in the way of groups that some parts of the political establishment may think will not turn out for them or are not particularly strong supporters of them. What some people behind this may be thinking is, “If those people do not turn up and vote, is that such a bad deal?” When I said a concerted effort, that is what I mean.

Elections Bill (Fourth sitting)

Cat Smith Excerpts
None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

Shall I bring in other members of the Committee? Patrick Grady, would you like to ask a question? [Interruption.] Oh, hang on.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
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Q I apologise to our witness. I am afraid I had some lift troubles, trying to get down to the first floor. I thank you for your time before the Committee. Will you outline anything that you feel could have been included in the legislation, or that could be amended, to strengthen the integrity of the ballot?

Gavin Millar: I am sorry—I am having trouble hearing.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
- Hansard - -

I will try repeating my question. Is there anything that you feel is missing from the legislation that would strengthen elections, or anything that is amendable that needs to be tightened up?

Gavin Millar: As the Committee probably knows, there is a widely held view that what we have at the moment is a complicated mass of disparate election law provisions in statutes that have been enacted over many years, often containing historical provisions that have just stayed in them down the decades. The mass of that legislative material is difficult and confusing for election administrators—lawyers, judges, candidates and agents.

Accordingly, there is a widely held view that the way to tackle election law now would be to sweep that current body of law aside and modernise it, applying appropriate consolidating provisions in the existing law, into a single, simpler set of statutory rules. The Law Commission said this a few years ago, I have said it and others have said it often. It is disappointing that, in approaching the legislation, the Government have chosen to introduce another rather ad hoc set of disparate provisions that are unrelated, rather than the whole amazing, simplifying rewrite that is required. I suppose that is the first point, in terms of where we are. There is a case—[Inaudible]—to tackle the urgent problems in the electoral system, but with the exception of part 6 of the Bill, which deals with information to be included with electronic material, nothing that it tackles could conceivably be regarded as an urgent problem of the sort that ought to take priority.

The Bill ignores the other most urgent problem in our system, which is the lack of an effective regulatory and enforcement regime to ensure that foreign money and dark money do not enter our political system through donations to political parties. I would say that that is now an election law issue, because in reality there is non-stop campaigning by political parties between the short and long election campaigns, which can be funded by large and inadequately regulated donations. There is the risk not only of money coming into the system that should not be there, but of the level playing field that we have always striven to achieve in our election law during the narrower periods of elections being lost in the intervening periods. It is disappointing that nothing in the legislation addresses those problems.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Q Thank you. I have one follow-up question. The legislation impacts on third-party campaigners, and you have already said that the regulations for elections run across many different pieces of legislation. We do not have that single set of rules for participation. Do you think that the changes to third-party campaigners strike the right balance between engaging third-party campaigners in the democratic process and transparency in terms of the source of political money?

Gavin Millar: There is no doubt that once you have got into the process of regulating non-party expenditure in elections, some very difficult questions arise. Traditionally, those difficult questions have arisen in our system in relation to non-candidate expenditure in constituencies or local government wards—whatever it is—during the election campaign. Local campaigners, non-governmental organisations and so on and so forth can spend some money to campaign, but it is heavily capped. Of course, we are now into the territory where national campaigning is capped and regulated, and the current laws in relation to that are incredibly complicated, very difficult to follow and understand, and very difficult to apply, even for the courts.

I suppose the broad considerations are that we should, in a democracy, encourage and facilitate non-party campaigning of either form, but including national campaigns, to the extent that we can, if it does not unbalance the level playing field across the piece, because that contributes to the democratic process. There are a great many NGOs, charities and third-party campaigners that are not directly party political or campaigning on a range of issues, but may be campaigning on just one issue. It enhances our democracy to enable them to participate, which is going to cost money—they will have to spend money on that—provided that it does not cross the line of unbalancing a level playing field. It is a difficult balance to strike.

One of the features of the legislation that is very difficult is clause 25. It tackles third-party campaigning where it crosses a particular line, which is what is known in the legislation as a joint campaigning arrangement, where the third party or third parties can be shown, as a matter of fact, to have a plan or an arrangement to campaign together. That is an incredibly difficult concept. There have been a couple of cases where the courts have struggled with this, and I do not find the drafting in the Bill very easy, particularly clause 25.

It will be very difficult for campaigners, who might be caught by a suggestion that that is what they are doing, to know whether they are on the right or the wrong side of the line. If they are deemed to be on the wrong side of the line, and a court or a commission says that there is planned co-ordinated expenditure involving more than one non-party campaigner and a political party, that will dramatically reduce the amount that they will be able to spend. They will have to go through the whole process of declaring all the participants in that arrangement, and their available spend will be reduced accordingly. It may be that there are cases where it is justified in having that end result, but you should not have unclear law that leaves people in doubt as to what they can and cannot do and what is and is not a joint campaigning arrangement.

At the moment, that is very unclear in our law and has not been properly resolved by the courts. I would not suggest rushing into the provisions of clause 25. If that part of the Bill is going to go through Parliament, there should be very careful scrutiny of exactly what it is intended to catch and what it is not intended to catch, and of what the consequences are for third-party campaigners who engage in that sort joint campaigning with a political party. I am just not sure that that is there at the moment. That is the problem. Therefore it will tend to risk encouraging that active participation that I said was so important in a democracy.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Q Under clause 25, the Minister would also have the power to add or remove categories of campaigners from being permitted to campaign in elections. Do you have some concern about that?

Gavin Millar: Yes, I am concerned that this part of a strand in our law that is developing, which gives powers to Government and to the Executive to fill in gaps in legislation and take legally binding decisions outwith the legislation. It is very undesirable. It means that nobody knows in advance what the law is going to achieve and how it will work. It reduces parliamentary scrutiny.

Everything that is going to be there that will affect non-party campaigning should be in the primary legislation. It should be simple, clear and easy to understand, and it should be justified in terms of what it is trying to achieve in preventing the skewing of the level playing field. It should be absolutely clear what the consequences are for third-party campaigners, many of whom I advise at election time and in between elections. They are very confused by this. They find it very difficult to know what they can and cannot do, what crosses a particular line and what does not cross it, and what their maxima are for spending. You do not need to be a lawyer to realise that that is undesirable in a democracy, with an activity of such importance.

None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

Minister?

--- Later in debate ---
Chloe Smith Portrait Chloe Smith
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

It is very helpful that you close with the point that it must be specified through guidance, because that is indeed what the intention is. It is also what one of our witnesses yesterday agreed was where much of the work should be done.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Q Fazilet, welcome to the Committee and thank you very much for the contributions you have made so far. I have a couple of questions.

You opened your remarks by describing how you felt that the legislation is turning back the clock, particularly for voters who are blind or partially sighted. If I understood correctly, that is because the 1983 Act wording would be rescinded and there would be much more flexibility for local authorities to have potentially quite different ways of supporting blind and partially sighted voters. That would create something of a postcode lottery. What would the challenges then be for voters with a disability or impairment who have perhaps moved house to a different local authority area and might then get a different level of service or a different system to facilitate their needs? Would that be an additional barrier to voting for disabled people?

Fazilet Hadi: I like the words in the Representation of the People Act 1983, “prescribed equipment”. Obviously, guidance can say at any point what that prescribed equipment is for. There might be prescribed equipment for people with other impairments. It is not just tactile devices; it could be adjustable tables or pens that people can grip.

The Government signed up to the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which says that there must be full participation in political and public life for disabled people. It specifies that there must be materials, facilities and procedures that are fully accessible and appropriate. It specifies that there must be a secret ballot. It specifies that there must be assistance from whoever the disabled person chooses. The Human Rights Act 1998 talks about the right to vote and how we all need to have the ability to express our opinion through voting. The Equality Act 2010 puts a public sector equality duty on the Government and local government––any government––to think about what they are doing to promote the interests of, and make reasonable adjustments for, disabled people and others. We have all these laws and a stated intention that this Bill should make things better for participation by disabled people, but it cannot be better for the equipment to be different in different polling stations. For me as an elector, it is about not knowing exactly what I am entitled to, so that I can try to enforce it if I do not get it. Leaving arrangements to the 152 local authorities in England, and I do not know how many in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is totally unacceptable.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Q I have heard representations from various different disability charities and advocacy groups representing disabled people about the accessibility challenges of local authority buildings. Part of this legislation relates to voter ID. You have mentioned that you have some concerns about that. Putting those concerns slightly to one side, do you have any concerns about the barriers that would be faced by disabled voters in trying to access the free voter ID that would be administered by local authorities—not the polling stations, but the free ID cards?

Fazilet Hadi: Huge concerns. If we think about who does not have a driving licence or a passport, who does not have a blue badge or a bus pass or a railcard, we are asking those people who have obviously found it unsurmountable for various reasons—those reasons could be cognitive, sensory, digital exclusion; all sorts of reasons—to apply for a card. We are asking the most disadvantaged people in our community, who have not got one of those other cards, to go and apply for a card. It just does not make any sense. These are the people who are least likely to apply for a card. If they could apply for cards and that was easy for them, they would have one of these other cards. I just feel the proposal is completely impracticable.

If we really want the people who are really struggling to vote to come and vote—the people who do not have any of these cards—you can imagine how many challenges that section of the community has, and applying for a voting card would not come anywhere near the top of their to-do list.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Thank you.

Patrick Grady Portrait Patrick Grady
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Q Thank you, Fazilet, that is really very helpful. I have quite a technical question about the wording in the legislation and what the Government propose. What they propose to do is to take out the wording that currently exists about prescribing devices for eligible voters who are blind or partially sighted, and to replace it with a more general paragraph about supplying, as you already mentioned,

“such equipment as it is reasonable…for the purposes of enabling or making it easier for, relevant persons”.

Relevant persons would include blind or partially sighted people, but also people with other disabilities or impairments or difficulties.

Is there any reason why you could not just have both? You could keep the specific provisions, perhaps updating them so we are not limiting this to one specific piece of advice, and making a bit of a tweak so that we talk more generally about equipment that might change over time with technology, but keep those provisions and add in the extra requirement for a wider group of voters who might have difficulty accessing the polling stations. Do you see any incompatibility with that approach?

Fazilet Hadi: No, there is no incompatibility. My main point would be that if there is prescribed equipment—that is not just for blind people; if there is prescribed equipment for wheelchair users or people with dexterity problems—let that be prescribed, so that we get consistency across the board, but let us have an additional provision about how all reasonable adjustments should be made, which is actually just repeating the duty in the Equality Act, because electoral officers are discharging a public function anyway. I do not mind that being repeated, but I do not think we should be confusing prescribing equipment for whichever impairment group needs it with the duty to make reasonable adjustments. They can live together quite harmoniously—I agree.

--- Later in debate ---
None Portrait The Chair
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We will now hear oral evidence.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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On a point of order, Ms Rees. A motion to approve an instruction has been laid by the Government and will be heard on the Floor of the House on Monday, regarding expanding the Elections Bill to include electoral voting systems, specifically in terms of mayoralties within England and police and crime commissioners. Would it be in order to ask questions of Dr Renwick about electoral systems, given that they are not currently in the scope of the Bill?

None Portrait The Chair
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My understanding is that matter is not currently in the scope of the Bill. I am aware that the motion is on the Order Paper for Monday.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
- Hansard - -

Further to that point of order, is it possible for the Committee to take evidence on electoral systems at any future scheduled evidence sessions that would take place after Monday, when such systems presumably would become part of the Bill?

None Portrait The Chair
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If it is possible to have a supplementary programme motion, then that could be added, but that is not a matter for me. That is usually done through the usual channels.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
- Hansard - -

Thank you, Ms Rees.

None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

Q I welcome Dr Alan Renwick, deputy director of the constitution unit at University College London. Thank you very much for joining us. We have until 4.15 pm for this session. Please could you introduce yourself?

Dr Renwick: I am Alan Renwick from the constitution unit at University College London and I lead our work on elections and referendums, and some of our recent work on the structure and functioning of the Union.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
- Hansard - -

Q Dr Renwick, thank you so much for your time this afternoon. May I begin by asking you about the Electoral Commission? The legislation proposes some changes to the way the Electoral Commission is managed, in terms of the Government setting out a strategic document to direct the work of the commission. It also proposes slight changes to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission by adding a new Minister to a committee that already has a Government bias. Do you have any examples of how electoral commissions work in other democracies and the level of Government interference over regulators?

Dr Renwick: The principle for a good electoral commission is that it should be independent from the Government. The details of how that works in countries around the world depend a great deal on political culture; it is not just a matter of institutions. I would not attempt to draw a tight parallel between how things work in other countries and how things should work in this country. For example, some countries might have a procedure for appointing members of an electoral commission that might look quite political on the surface, but in practice, given the conventions in that country, it may be properly neutral and protect the commission’s independence. The key thing is how to ensure the independence of the Electoral Commission, alongside the appropriate accountability, in the context of the UK. I am afraid that the Bill’s proposals seem wholly contrary to the principle of independence of the commission.

Independence and accountability matter. It is absolutely right that there should be parliamentary accountability, and there is already a great deal of it. The Electoral Commission is, of course, accountable to the Speaker’s Committee; the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee scrutinises the commission’s work a great deal; and it is also accountable to the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd. I do not think that there is a deficit of accountability of the commission at present.

As for independence, I think that it requires, quite simply, that Parliament lay out the remit of the Electoral Commission, and that must happen through primary legislation, so that Parliament can properly scrutinise and amend that remit. It is not a matter that is written in Government and subject to much more limited parliamentary scrutiny or opportunity for amendment. Parliament should lay down the remit for the commission, which should then get on with delivering that—subject to appropriate scrutiny, as already exists. The idea of having an additional strategy and policy statement written by Ministers, without the appropriate degree of scrutiny, flies in the face of the principle of independence, and therefore seems to be wholly inappropriate.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Q You said that the Electoral Commission is also accountable to the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish Parliament; it is also funded by both those Parliaments. Could you say what consideration the Committee should give to any change due to a strategy and policy statement driven by a UK Parliament, and what tensions that could potentially create within the Union?

Dr Renwick: It could potentially create very great tensions. The proposal would clearly require a legislative consent motion in order to be compatible with the Sewel convention. The Counsel General—the Minister in the Welsh Government—has already indicated that he does not recommend that a legislative consent motion be passed on this matter, and I presume the Scottish Parliament will do the same.

This part of the Bill envisages that Ministers in the UK Government, subject to affirmative procedure, would be able to specify guidelines for devolved matters and that Scottish and Welsh Ministers would only be consulted—and, indeed, would only potentially be notified—in the case of amendments to the statement. That seems wholly contrary to the principles of devolution that have been established, and I cannot see any justification for it. The Sewel convention indicates that Westminster will normally not legislate in matters that have been devolved. There is nothing abnormal here, there is nothing unusual and nothing has changed since these matters were devolved to Scotland and Wales—those devolution changes did not take place very long ago—so it seems very problematic.

That also heightens an issue that already exists with the governance of the Electoral Commission: the commissioners themselves are all appointed on the recommendation of the House of Commons, and that on the recommendation of the Speaker’s Committee. The Speaker’s Committee has, in recent appointments of commissioners with responsibility for Scotland and Wales, either consulted the Presiding Officer or the Llywydd, or included a representative of those people in the committee responsible for shortlisting, but that has been entirely at its discretion.

There is a need to review the arrangements for governance of the Electoral Commission in light of the recent devolutions of electoral matters in those areas. The last serious review of this question, conducted by the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2007, said at that time that the current governance arrangements were appropriate because those matters were not devolved. These matters have been devolved now, and therefore there is a need for a review.

My impression is that this point has not been thought about terribly much. I do not detect that either the Scottish Government or the Welsh Government have done much detailed thinking on this, but some consideration is needed of how to ensure that the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd are properly represented in these processes.

One final point I should make in this area is one that has been made by others: the fact that the Speaker’s Committee has a majority from a single party is simply indefensible against the principle of independence of electoral processes. That has never happened before—it did not happen when there were large majorities for Governments in the early 2000s; at that time there was no majority for that party in the Speaker’s Committee—but it has been allowed to happen now, which suggests that conventional constraints on the improper exercise of power are not working, to be honest. Legislative action is needed to ensure that there is never a single party majority on the Speaker’s Committee.

Chloe Smith Portrait Chloe Smith
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Q Thank you very much for joining us, Dr Renwick; it is very good to have your expertise. May I make use of that expertise with a relatively simple starting question? Clause 14 deals with membership of the Speaker’s Committee, and every so often we hear a misrepresentation—I think I just heard the hon. Lady from the Opposition doing this—suggesting that there will be an extra Minister of the Crown added to the Speaker’s Committee. Could you help us to confirm that concurrent powers, which is what clause 14 contains and which, as you will recall, comes in the history of having made a transfer of functions order before, mean that this will be a question of a substitute Minister—essentially a junior when the senior is too busy?

Dr Renwick: I am not a lawyer, so I wondered when I looked at those words exactly what they meant, but if they mean what you have described them as meaning, they do not trouble me. It was always the intent of the PPERA legislation passed in 2000 that the Minister with responsibility for elections and the Minister with responsibility for local government should be members of the Speaker’s Committee, and if the change is simply intended to ensure that the Minister who has responsibility for elections can participate, but there are only two Ministers participating, then that change does not seem to me problematic.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts
Monday 8th March 2021

(3 years ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lindsay Hoyle Portrait Mr Speaker
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I remind Members to put their masks back on if they can. I am sure that those who have not done so have a certificate, because they would not want to put the rest of us at risk.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
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What recent assessment she has made of disabled people’s experience of the personal independence payment application process.

Justin Tomlinson Portrait The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)
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We have made a series of improvements to the personal independence payment claimant experience following research and two independent reviews. Building on that, the forthcoming Green Paper on health and disability support is being influenced by the views of disabled people and representatives from disability organisations.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
- Hansard - -

I wrote to the Minister last week telling him about the work of the Morecambe Bay Poverty Truth Commission, which has empowered people who have experienced the social security system to speak truth to power and try to improve the system. Will he meet the PIP claimants in my constituency who want to tell him about their experiences?

Justin Tomlinson Portrait Justin Tomlinson
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank the hon. Member for that question, and I would be delighted to do that. I know that she has been very proactive on a number of issues in my area over the years, and I would be delighted to have a meeting with her and her organisation to listen to their experiences.