Representation of the People Bill (Sixth sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Samantha Dixon)]

I will speak first to clause 48 and associated schedule 3, before addressing Government amendments 14 to 17 and new clause 40, tabled by the Opposition.

The current legislative framework for absent voting was designed for a very different electoral landscape. Today, far more people vote by post; supply chains and administrator resources are under greater pressure; and expectations around reliability and timely delivery have changed. Developed in consultation with the electoral sector, clause 48 modernises and strengthens the absent voting system to reflect those realities. It streamlines administration, gives electors greater flexibility and ensures that safeguards around the integrity of absent vote applications remain robust.

These measures will enable postal voters to take part in elections with confidence, by helping to ensure their ballot is issued and delivered in good time, while allowing a switch to voting in person or by emergency proxy if their ballot is delayed. They will not apply to Northern Ireland because of the different absent voting regime there and the stricter security requirements around absent voting, which are a result of the history of electoral fraud in Northern Ireland.

Setting clearer rules and deadlines will give electoral administrators the confidence and certainty needed to manage their workload effectively and keep the absent voting system running smoothly at the most demanding points in the electoral timetable. The integrity of our elections is of paramount importance. The clause also strengthens safeguards in the absent voting system by clarifying identity verification requirements, and introduces a clear statutory determination deadline for identity verification. I commend the clause to the Committee.

Government amendments 14, 15 and 16 remove a regulation-making power that the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel has advised is unnecessary. The Bill already provides that a proxy with a long-term proxy postal voting arrangement can make temporary arrangements for a particular poll without affecting that long-term arrangement. Where a proxy instead applies for a proxy postal voting arrangement for a particular election, the correct outcome is that the long-term arrangement is cancelled. That is the policy intention, and the Bill already delivers that without the need for regulation-making powers. The amendments therefore simplify the legislation, remove redundant provisions and ensure the law operates clearly and consistently for electoral administrators.

Government amendment 17 ensures consistency between the absent voting regime and the proxy voting offences in section 61(1A) of the Representation of the People Act 1983. The Bill already allows someone who has applied to be registered, and is only awaiting the end of the objections period, to be treated as a person who “will be registered” for absent voting purposes. Without the amendment, that same person could be granted a proxy vote but might not be legally capable of committing the offence of acting as a proxy for too many electors if they knowingly breached the proxy limits. The amendment closes that gap, reflects the advice of the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and ensures that the law operates clearly, consistently and as intended. I commend the amendments to the Committee.

New clause 40 seeks to require electoral registration officers to share information with political parties about electors whose postal voting arrangements have expired. While supporting voter participation is important, the Government do not consider the new clause to be workable, proportionate or necessary. As drafted, it does not provide access to postal vote expiry data itself; instead, it links disclosure to details supplied in proxy vote applications for parliamentary elections, which is not how postal voting arrangements are recorded or renewed in practice.

Most postal voters will never have applied for a proxy vote. As a result, for many electors whose postal vote has expired, there would simply be no proxy application data to disclose, meaning that the new clause would not achieve its apparent policy aim. There is also a clear mismatch in scope. The new clause refers to postal vote expiry for

“elections of the kind in question”

but limits disclosure to proxy applications made for parliamentary elections, significantly narrowing and distorting the dataset that would be available.

A question of principle is also at stake. Electoral registration officers already have a legal duty to notify electors directly about when their postal voting arrangements are due to expire and to provide them with information about how to make a fresh application to vote by post. That ensures that voters are informed at the right time without reliance on third parties.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

When postal voters are notified by their local authority that they are about to drop off the roll, does the Minister agree that they should not always be encouraged to do that online? Some people who have postal votes do not want to make online applications. Does she also agree that they should be sent a fresh application from the council, with a freepost envelope for its return, so that they can keep their postal votes?

[Samantha Dixon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. It is appropriate for electoral registration officers to use their discretion in the circumstances that he describes. They can do that already, and should continue to do so, rather than the Government prescribing the route that they should follow.

Finally, requiring electoral registration officers to respond to ad hoc requests from political parties, alongside their existing statutory write-out duties, would impose a substantial and unnecessary administrative burden. For those reasons, the Government cannot support new clause 40.