Representation of the People Bill

Lauren Edwards Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lauren Edwards (Rochester and Strood) (Lab)]

I welcome the Bill, particularly the parts that will deliver on the Government’s manifesto commitment to give 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote, introduce automatic voter registration, and widen the list of accepted forms of voter ID. By taking those steps, the Government are improving the way in which our democracy runs and our citizens engage with it.

There are ways in which the Bill can be improved, however. I will talk about unincorporated associations. Although such associations are used legitimately by some, they can also be an opaque vehicle for funds of unknown origin, and there is potential for them to be used for foreign interference in our political system. Transparency International UK found that, of the £40 million in donations made by unincorporated associations since 2010, a huge £38.6 million came from unknown sources under the existing rules, so it is certainly time for change. That is especially true since the previous Government took the opportunity in their last few years to increase the thresholds for the reporting of political donations from unincorporated associations, which was a thoroughly retrograde step—one that I am very pleased we are addressing today.

The Bill takes welcome steps to prevent unincorporated associations from being used to conceal donations from impermissible sources, and to reduce the level at which they must register with the Electoral Commission and report gifts. However, the reporting threshold for all those measures remains unnecessarily high. The criticism of our current system is not only that it allows dark money into our political system, but that it is unnecessarily complex and confusing. The Government should take the opportunity that the Bill presents to tackle both issues by reducing the reporting threshold for unincorporated associations to £500—equal with the permissibility threshold. To deliver maximum transparency, I urge Ministers to consider whether the Bill should require information to be published on the purpose and activities of unincorporated associations, as well as who controls them.

Let me touch briefly on my work as vice-chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. Last year, we published a report into the 2024 general election, and made recommendations to the Government, some of which are reflected in the Bill, which I welcome. During the Committee’s inquiry, I asked the chair of the Electoral Commission why our elections are held on Thursdays. I was told that it is simply tradition. That might seem a minor point, but the 2024 general election saw the second lowest turnout since the introduction of universal suffrage. In that context, we need to pull every lever available to us to make it as easy as possible for people to exercise their right to vote. I am sure that we have all stood on a doorstep at night, unsuccessfully asking someone who is tired after a long day at work and a really long commute, and who needs to put the kids to bed, to go to the end of their street and vote.

The Government should consider international evidence from places such as Australia, where elections are held on weekends, to determine whether a change in the day of the week would increase turnout—in much the same way as they have looked at international examples to conduct a pilot on flexible voting. I welcome that modernisation of the way in which we run our elections. Moving the election day to the weekend would likely have a really positive operational benefit, as it would free up more schools to act as polling stations.

I close by stating my support for the consideration of compulsory participation in elections. When we consider the balance of rights and responsibilities, I do not think it too much to ask people to go along and participate in democracy every few years.