Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

The Minister for the Cabinet Office was asked—

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

1. Whether he plans to implement the proposals made in the “Securing the ballot” review of electoral fraud.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Minister Robin Walker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I am not sure which of the two of you is the more offended, but my apologies to the both of you.

[Neil Parish]

In December 2008, I was an election observer in Bangladesh. Because of previous voter fraud, photographs were taken of 80 million people, and people were clearly identifiable from those photographs when they went to vote. Have the Government considered doing that? A democracy needs as many people to vote as possible, but we do not want identity fraud when people vote.

[Chris Skidmore]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about international comparisons. Many countries, including Canada, Brazil and Austria, already require photographic ID to vote at polling stations, and such a scheme was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2003. The Government are taking forward pilots to look at electoral identification in the 2018 local government elections, and we are willing to test various forms of identification—photographic and non-photographic—to ensure above all that no one is disenfranchised.