Representation of the People Bill

Martin Wrigley Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir James Cleverly]

The hon. Gentleman is factually wrong. We do have a legal definition of childhood, and there is an international definition of childhood. The Children Act defines 16 and 17-year-olds in the UK as children. The UN convention on the rights of the child defines 16 and 17-year-olds as children. So I ask again, do the Government plan to define this as giving votes to children, or are they now saying that 16 and 17-year-olds are not children?

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

Not long ago, as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, some of us went down to the commando training centre at Lympstone to see the Royal Marines’ passing-out parade. One of the brave young people there was just 17, and at the end of the parade he was told, “Marine, go off and do your duty.” At 17, he should be allowed to vote. Does the shadow Secretary of State not agree with me?

[Sir James Cleverly]

Sixteen and 17-year-olds can only join the armed forces with parental consent, and they cannot be deployed. Sixteen and 17-year-olds in the armed forces are children, which is why they are still in the education system, even when they join the armed forces. They are non-deployable, and they can only join with parental consent. Let me say yet again—third time lucky—that the Children Act and the UN convention on the rights of the child define 16 and 17-year-olds as children. So, for the third time of asking, are the Government saying that they are giving votes to children, or are they saying that 16 and 17-year-olds are not children?

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[Lisa Smart]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. I applaud the work she has done during her time here to move the case forward for a fairer, more representative voting system. The Bill is a huge opportunity and I look forward to working with colleagues across the House on how we can strengthen it and make it even better.

[Martin Wrigley]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that if the single transferable vote system is good enough for selecting Select Committee Chairs and the alternative vote system is good enough for mayors, they should be good enough in other elections, too?

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[Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)]

The most personal form of power each of us has is the power to choose. When we mark our ballot, we exercise something profound and meaningful: our power to decide freely what kind of future we want, and that choice belongs to each of us. But today it is clear that our power to freely decide our future is under attack, not because our vote has been taken away or because of voter fraud, but because the environment in which we make up our minds is being deliberately distorted. Hostile states—especially Russia—are investing in digital tools designed to confuse, divide and destabilise us. At the same time, big tech has built systems that reward the strongest reaction: rage over fact, speed over accuracy and repetition over reflection. One seeks to weaken us, the other profits from whatever captures our attention, and together they distort the spaces in which many of us now make up our minds.

We have come together to put forward amendments that would help the Representation of the People Bill to continue to maintain democracy as we expect it to. We already accept the election rules that require us to regulate spending, prohibit impersonation and enforce transparency. We choose to do that because our democracy is too important to leave unguarded, and the digital space where so many of our choices are now formed should be no different. If our duty is to protect people’s power to choose, these five things must follow.

First, we must identify the crime. At the moment, lots of laws apply, but if it is not specific, it is hard for law enforcement to act. We must codify that the existing laws will apply to these digital behaviours, with a recognition that these are serious offences with serious consequences.

Secondly, we must shine a light. If a video is artificially generated to impersonate a candidate, voters have the right to know. The hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) has described his own experience in this regard. We need much higher levels of disclosure and labelling of where information comes from, so that people can better understand what they are seeing. That is why we need more regulation and transparency around political advertising, with all paid digital advertising being kept publicly available in a library so that it is open for all to see.

Thirdly, we must demand that major platforms play their proper role in society. These platforms shape what millions of people see during an election and they must be accountable. These amendments would enable Ofcom to demand action from these platforms, unless they want to face major consequences, by making electoral offences a priority offence under the law. With our success in forcing Grok to take action on notification, we know that we can act to protect people. No platform is too big or too powerful.

[Martin Wrigley]

Does the hon. Member agree that our joint hon. Friend from the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), was woefully let down by Meta when he attempted to get his own video taken down?

[Emily Darlington]

I completely agree. I think we all agree, no matter what side of the House we are on, that a misrepresentation of that kind distorts the electorate’s views. The reality is that it should be taken down. I think we can all agree on that fact.

Fourthly, law enforcement and regulatory bodies must have the power to act. The Electoral Commission must have more power to investigate, with real-time access to the platform data that is vital to understanding the impact of algorithmic systems and the role of inauthentic behaviour through bots. Regulators must have the power to compel major platforms to take action, including in the case of the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk. We need to have a standard way to let the public know about incidents when they happen. They need to be informed.

Fifthly, these rules must apply year-round. One of the reasons that Meta will not take that content down is that we are not in an electoral period. These online methodologies are so powerful because they recognise the truth that we make our choices not just in the election period; we are making up our minds all the time. Let us get our election law in line with that reality.

Finally, we are proposing an amendment that goes to the core of how we treat each other. We must take action to reduce the abuse of candidates. I commend Mr Speaker and his Conference for their important work on this issue, because we all know too personally where this leads. Not only have we already lost beloved colleagues and friends to violence, but we also lose the talented people who will be put off from running in the first place. This is a robust set of choices that we in the Chamber can make to protect the future that we live in together. They are not about shutting down arguments or preventing someone from speaking their mind; they are about protecting the space for each of us to make the choice freely, and for those spaces to be filled with genuine discourse and arguments.

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[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

I agree with many of the comments that Members have made, and it is nice to see such communality on idea that we need proportional representation, that we need to get rid of dirty money, and that we need to abolish the possibility of foreign people buying our elections. We see in too many countries across the world that if people have the money, they can buy the votes, and we must not fall into that trap.

I welcome the introduction of votes for 16-year-olds. The children I meet at schools talking politics are engaged and understand what they are doing. I question whether we have sufficient digital voter IDs in the scheme for them to use. Personally, I would like to see voter ID abolished entirely, much as I would like to see the open register abolished entirely. However, the biggest thing I had complaints about after the last election was postal votes, whether it was postal votes too late in getting to people or postal votes being sent back and too late getting to the elections office. There is some movement in the Bill, but it is not enough.

However, we are completely ignoring a whole section of voters: our overseas voters. We heard earlier how the overseas mandate had changed. Now, instead of some 1.4 million overseas voters, we have an estimated 3.4 million overseas voters, and we need to change how they can vote. They are asking for the ability to self-print ballots from the system—that is possible; they do it in the Netherlands—and return them through embassies and consulates. That would enable us to reach these overseas contingents, and we should be encouraging them to take part in our elections, as they are entitled to do. Something like 200,000 registered for the last election, but there are 3.4 million people whom we have disenfranchised. The other big question that we have agreed on and talked through is how we deal with misinformation and disinformation and modern technology, which are distorting our electoral position. We have to make more of that.

On the whole, I would say that this is a reasonable start for a Bill. There is a lot more work to be done, but having heard Members on both sides of the House agreeing on the Bill, I think that together we can make it better, and fit for the 21st century.