Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Randall Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

I can certainly confirm that we are taking it forward on an urgent basis. Since I took up the role with responsibility for LGBT+ issues, I have engaged with a wide variety of stakeholders, including those who have been victims of conversion therapy. I have engaged with all the stakeholders, listed by the hon. Lady, from whom the Scottish Government took evidence, from an England and Wales point of view.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

2. What steps the Government are taking to help ensure equality and freedom from discrimination for people with Down Syndrome.

[The Minister for Care and Mental Health (Gillian Keegan)]

The Government are proud to support the Down Syndrome Bill, which was introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox). The Bill aims to tackle inequalities and ensure that services and support meet the unique needs of people with Down syndrome.

[Tom Randall]

I welcome the passage of the Down Syndrome Bill through Parliament. Will my hon. Friend commit herself to consulting people living with Down syndrome and other disabilities during the development of the guidance to ensure that their voices are heard?

[Gillian Keegan]

Absolutely. That is essential. People with Down syndrome and other disabilities, as well as their advocates, will be involved in each phase of the development of the guidance. There will be a national call for evidence, and a formal consultation on the draft guidance on gov.uk will be available to anyone who wants to share their views. We will provide details of the call for evidence shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Randall Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

6. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the implications for Scotland of plans to restructure the British Army.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

13. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the implications for Scotland of plans to restructure the British Army.

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)]

My office and I have regular discussions with the Ministry of Defence on all matters relating to defence in Scotland, including the latest plans to modernise and restructure the Army. I was pleased that the review included plans for the Army to expand its footprint in Scotland; it is going from six to seven units, and Scotland will have a greater proportion of the Army than today.

While I have the opportunity, I would also like to thank our fantastic British armed forces who are currently supporting the booster programme in Scotland. The Secretary of State for Defence announced yesterday that a further 100 military personnel will support the vital booster campaign, and today the MOD has announced that another 80 medics are going to three NHS boards in Scotland. That means that over 400 military personnel are supporting Scotland’s health services.

[Mr Jack]

Absolutely. Scotland plays a vital role in the defence of the UK. The Army’s future soldier restructuring programme is great news for Scotland. Not only will it deliver £355 million of investment in the Army’s Scottish estate, as my hon. Friend pointed out, but Scotland will gain a major unit and, as I said, we will see a greater proportion of the British Army in Scotland.

[Tom Randall]

Soldiers from Scotland have had a central role in the armed forces over many centuries, from the charge of the Scots Greys at Waterloo, to the western front, to helping roll out our vaccine programme. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that that proud central role will continue as strongly as ever in Scotland following any restructuring?

[Mr Jack]

Under the future soldier review, the Army’s footprint in Scotland will be stronger than ever, recognising the immense contribution that Scottish servicemen and women make to the British Army. I am pleased that Scottish troops will continue the tradition, and they will lead the new Ranger Regiment, deploying alongside partner forces to counter extremist organisations and hostile state threats.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Randall Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am afraid that she has completely failed to look at what Sir Peter Hendy set out in his Union connectivity review. It is a fantastic agenda for change and improvement, particularly in Wales and particularly on the north Welsh corridor where the railway links deserve to be improved and will be improved under this Government.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

Q13. Getting investment into Gedling is important. At a previous PMQs, I put aside my political differences with Labour-run Gedling Borough Council to champion its levelling-up fund bid, which, like other funding bids that it has made was sadly unsuccessful. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important that councils such as Gedling now take stock and learn from this experience and will he confirm that help from Government will be available to do that so that, in future, hopefully Gedling and other councils will be able to make more successful bids.

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, of course, we are very happy to help Gedling and other Labour-run councils to get their act together where necessary and to put in those bids. Just to remind my hon. Friend, more levelling-up fund bids come due in the spring of next year, and I wish Gedling well in its future bids.

Elections Bill (First sitting)

Tom Randall Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Nick Smith]

Q Thank you for that. My second question is this. Mr Mawrey, one of our earlier witnesses, said something like, “Voter ID at polling stations isn’t necessary because there is very little personation.” What is the incidence of personation at polling stations, do you know?

Assistant Chief Constable Cann: I think it is right to say that we have relatively small numbers of those offences coming through to us so, in that sense, it is not a major issue in terms of workload or demand for policing at election time. I imagine that in any case, part of the motivation behind the proposal for voter ID is an element of deterrence. In that regard, if it were to be brought in, we would see some value in that and would broadly welcome that proposal, notwithstanding the fact that, as I say, we do not tend to prosecute or get asked to investigate a significant number of personation allegations.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

Q Councillor Golds, you gave some examples earlier today about behaviour in polling stations. Had there been a voter ID regime in place in Tower Hamlets previously, do you think the behaviour that you saw in polling stations might have been different?

Councillor Golds: I certainly think it would have improved. We had a byelection as recently as 12 October, where in one polling station—the Sundial Centre in Shipton Street—the police were called on two occasions to disperse unruly crowds outside the polling station intimidating voters. That is one polling station in one byelection held this summer. I have to say that Assistant Chief Constable Cann’s description of the police activity is positively Panglossian in its optimism; I just wonder whether any of this has percolated through to the Metropolitan police.

[Tom Randall]

Q In Mawrey’s judgment, he described —possibly unkindly—the behaviour of polling staff and the police as taking the three wise monkeys as their role models. Do you feel that after the Rahman trial, the police picked up the issues that arose from it?

Councillor Golds: Frankly, no. There was an inquiry organised by the police called Operation Lynemouth, which said in one of its closing descriptions that

“The policing of the election and the subsequent investigation was deficient in too many areas. There was a lack of corporate responsibility, a lack of training and insufficient resources for the SET investigation. In essence, the MPS did not consider the election and investigation a priority.”

Of course, at the time when they were supposed to be dealing with Tower Hamlets, they were also involved in the infamous Operation Midland, which was another subject. Indeed, one or two officers involved in the Tower Hamlets fiasco drifted through Operation Midland, much to my lack of surprise.

One thing about the police that is truly concerning me, as recent as this year, is the need to defend the secrecy of the ballot. The fundamental Act dealing with balloting in this country is the Ballot Act 1872, which says that you vote in secret. That Act has never been repealed. I have before me an email—a complaint—from a resident. They say that upon their visit to their polling station,

“I noticed 2 separate occasions where 2 people were in the polling booths together with the male member ‘influencing’ the female member’s vote.”

That is one person at midday at the polling station where, incidentally, I vote.

This has travelled to the police and is now in the hands of one Trevor Normoyle, who is the detective inspector of the special inquiry team and, to my horror, informed us that he will be in charge of Tower Hamlets next year. He seems to be completely unaware of the requirement for secrecy of the ballot, because he writes to this resident to say, “In relation to the concerns you have raised, inquiries were carried out”—incidentally, the elector reported this to the presiding officer—“and cannot substantiate any allegation that any influence was being exerted within the polling station, nor are any other electoral laws being broken. The reported matter is now closed”. So nothing will be done, but here we had two people effectively instructing others how to vote inside a polling station in London in 2021, which the police are ignoring—

[The Chair]

Order. Can we move on? We are very short of time.

Councillor Golds: Okay, but it is an example of the police’s utter failure to look at electoral malpractice in London.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Randall Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is totally right in what he says about radiologists and pathologists, but may I respectfully say to him that that must be done by means of the big powerful package that we put forward last week to raise the funding necessary? I believe his party should have supported that and it is incredible that it did not.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

Q5. Work continues to improve maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Last week, local MPs heard from those affected—including a former constituent of mine whose baby died only eight weeks ago—in a meeting with the Minister for Patient Safety. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is right that there is going to be an independent review of local maternity services? Will he join me in asking those affected to come forward to give evidence to that review, so that in future mothers throughout Nottinghamshire get the maternity services that they both need and deserve?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter; I know he has campaigned on that issue. The review is going ahead and we will look at what to do once it has been completed, but in the meantime Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust is going to be supported through the national maternity safety support programme.

Elections Bill

Tom Randall Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O’Hara]

I do not regard any findings of the OSCE, but what I think is important in this place, looking at UK-wide elections, is that we have a measure that works for United Kingdom general elections, and this is one that absolutely does not. The right hon. Gentleman says we should be reinventing the wheel and starting from scratch. There is a debate to be had, but the imposition of this kind of voter ID now is absolute nonsense and there is no evidence whatever to justify it. This is, therefore, actually a ploy to stop people going to the polling station in the first place. I believe it really is as crude as that. The Government plan appears to have been to conjure up a demon, convince people that that demon is posing a threat to them, and then allow themselves to introduce draconian and totally disproportionate measures to slay the demon they have just invented.

The fatal flaw in that argument is that there never was a demon. No matter how the Government have tried to spin this, people know that there never was a demon and that there is nothing to see. Now, the United Kingdom Government stand accused of a sleazy attempt to gerrymander the register for their own electoral gain.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

In his judgment on the election in Tower Hamlets, Richard Mawrey QC said there was an appreciable amount of personation by false registration in Tower Hamlets. I wonder if the hon. Gentleman has read that judgment.

[Brendan O'Hara]

I would say gently to the hon. Gentleman on the Tower Hamlets issue, which I believe went back to 2014, that to change an entire voting system on what went on in one particular London borough—the anecdotal evidence I have heard is that it was more to do with postal voting than personation. This measure is to do with personation, which has been proven not to be a problem.

This is an utterly reprehensible proposal that would be more at home in Donald Trump’s Republican party than in the United Kingdom. What is more important and more chilling is the brazen way in which the Government are doing it. They seem not to care. We always know it will not be the well-heeled and the affluent middle classes who will struggle to produce a passport, or a driving licence. We know and they know it will be the young, the poor, the marginalised and the minority communities who do not have a passport or do not drive, who will struggle to manage to collect a voter ID card. They will be affected by this registration.

The Government know that there are already between 2 million and 3 million people who do not have that ID. They also know that there are about 9 million people not registered. I think they should be spending an awful lot more time getting people on to the register than organising to take people off that register.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) with whom I have campaigned for many days and hours in Tower Hamlets. My first experience of Tower Hamlets elections was the infamous 2014 election, which was later declared void. As a polling agent at Three Mills Primary School in the Isle of Dogs, I watched from afar as voters ran a gauntlet of activists brandishing leaflets. The activists were very aggressive to voters, especially women, as they entered the polling station. When I went in to speak to the police officer about it, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Tower Hamlets, innit.”

What I saw at Three Mills Primary School was not the worst. The Mawrey judgment quotes a Labour polling agent who said that she was with her husband in the car and people were banging on the windows with leaflets. She said:

“The situation was so bad that I thought there was going to be some sort of accident. I could not even open a door and we had to go down another road.”

An election was stolen in Tower Hamlets, but despite all the intimidation, it did not actually cross the threshold of an electoral offence, so I am glad that that aspect is being tightened up. There has been a constant refrain today that fraud is rare, but it is like a curate’s egg; if it is bad in parts it affects the whole, and it has been partially bad in Tower Hamlets, Slough, Birmingham and elsewhere. I welcome both the reform to handling proxy votes and postal votes and the introduction of voter ID. As Mawrey identified in his judgment, there was at that election in Tower Hamlets an appreciable amount of impersonation by false registration.

I would like to focus the limited time that I have on the police, because there has been constant talk about the fact that there is no evidence of electoral fraud. Well, there will be no evidence if the police do not investigate it. Before the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee this morning, Peter O’Doherty of Thames Valley police said that the situation was much improved. I did not embarrass him by saying that he was starting from a very low base. Mawrey, in his judgment on conduct at polling stations, said:

“In the light of the two other groups of statements, an unkind person might remark that the policemen and polling staff had appeared to take as their rôle models the legendary Three Wise Monkeys.”

There has been a whole catalogue of allegations, and I do not have time to go through them this afternoon. Many of the allegations that have arisen from the Rahman trial have not been investigated by the Metropolitan police. I think that there is scope—I appreciate that it is outside the scope of this Bill—for complex electoral fraud to be taken out of the hands of the police and possibly placed with a specialist unit.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am listening very carefully to what my hon. Friend is saying. Do his comments basically throw out this argument that only three people have ever been prosecuted?

[Tom Randall]

I will give my right hon. Friend one example, of which there are many. In the Mawrey judgment of 2014, Kabir Ahmed was found to have used a false address to register a vote, but no further action was taken. Having had no action taken against him, he was elected as the Aspire candidate in the Weavers ward by-election in Tower Hamlets last month. There are people who are getting away with it, and people will continue to get away with it if no action is taken.

I support the Bill but there needs to be a culture change, with the development of specialist officers, perhaps from a different agency within the police, other than a county force. I welcome these measures, but they are just a start. If we are going to increase the number of convictions for electoral fraud, we need to ensure that we have the systems in place properly to investigate these cases, and then we will have numbers to show how widespread the problem can be.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Randall Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman and his party have been and are strong supporters of the Stormont House agreement, which itself effectively created a statute of limitations on some 40,000 crimes—everything except for murder—following the changes made in the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 to the justice options for people after the Good Friday/Belfast agreement. The reality is that we need to ensure that, which is why it is important we are clear that there is no moral equivalence. People who went out to do harm to others were acting in a way that was unspeakably horrendous. So many people put their lives at risk to protect others throughout that period. It is important that we continue to do that, which is why is it important that we have an information-recovery process that gets the truth and gets accountability, so that we avoid the very problem the hon. Gentleman outlined. To an extent, this has been happening because of the problems of the criminal justice system not seeing justice for people in the past few years.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on reducing delays to trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain during the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)]

The Secretary of State meets colleagues regularly to discuss matters related to Northern Ireland, including the implementation of the Ireland/Northern Ireland protocol. It is imperative that the protocol is operated in a pragmatic and proportionate way to ensure that it impacts as little as possible on the people of Northern Ireland. The UK is working hard and in good faith to find solutions. We need to find a way forward—a new balance of arrangements adapted to the practical reality of what we have seen since January and based on the common interests that we share.

[Tom Randall]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his answer. We must make the protocol work for the people of Northern Ireland, but we should not make the perfect the enemy of the good. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should press the European Union to take a more common-sense approach, so that we can find practical solutions to the issues the people of Northern Ireland face?

[Mr Walker]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The Northern Ireland protocol is a delicate balance designed to support the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and maintain Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, while protecting the EU single market. It must respect the needs of all Northern Ireland’s people and bear as lightly as possible on the everyday lives of people in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, that has not been our experience since January this year, and we have seen the costs of doing business and the cost to consumers going up. That is why we want to engage with the EU on this issue.

Voter ID

Tom Randall Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), who is my predecessor as chairman of the Poplar and Limehouse Conservative Association. I agree with everything he has said, particularly his generous remarks about Councillor Peter Golds and his campaign against electoral corruption.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) on securing the debate. We sit alongside each other in the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and I often agree with everything she says in that Select Committee. Regrettably, I will disagree with almost everything she has said this afternoon.

The hon. Lady says that this is a problem that does not exist. How does she know? To answer that question, perhaps it would be helpful to have a potted history on how to commit electoral fraud. There is a marked register that sets out who has voted and who has not. In the case of council elections, it is very easy to tell, with a little bit of research, who the 50%, 60% and in some areas up to 70% of people are who do not habitually vote in council elections. Once someone is armed with that name and an address, they can go to the local polling station and give that name and address. Unlike at Labour party meetings, there is no ID—they just need to give that name and address to the clerk at the polling station and they will be handed that voter’s ballot paper.

If someone lives in a town or small village, the clerk might recognise that the name and face do not match up, but if they live in a crowded urban area—take Tower Hamlets, as a random example—where people do not know each other and do not know their neighbours, the ballot paper will be handed over with no questions asked. If someone were to do this perhaps later on in the evening, at 8 or 9 o’clock, when most people who were going to vote had voted, they would be able to do that successfully, and they might, in an urban area, be able to go around a few polling districts, if they have really done their homework, and vote several times for several people, before the close of poll at 10 o’clock.

Throughout the whole of this process, this is perhaps the most unique fraud of all. It is a fraud in which the victim does not know that they are a victim of fraud. If someone has decided not to vote in an election, they will not go out to check the marked register—if they even know what the marked register is, which most people do not. They will not go out to check that they have not voted in an election in which they have decided not to vote.

If a victim of electoral fraud does not know that they are a victim of electoral fraud, how does the hon. Member for Luton South know? I have not had an answer to that so far. However, this debate has a little while more to run, so I look forward to being enlightened on that point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Randall Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Caste is not a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010, and case law has already shown that a claim of caste discrimination could qualify for protection under the race provisions in the Act.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

What steps she is taking to ensure that her policies are informed by robust evidence.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Elizabeth Truss)]

We can and must have an equality agenda that is driven by evidence, and that is why we have launched an equality data project, which will look at the life paths of individuals across this country and deliver hard data about the barriers that people face.

[Tom Randall [V]]

Over the Christmas break, I was disappointed to read comments in The Guardian by Halima Begum of the Runnymede Trust, who ridiculously claimed:

“I think the government’s long-term plan is to work up white nationalism for the next elections”.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that not only should that insulting thinking have no place in the setting of Government policy, but it should have no place in mainstream discourse?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I agree with my hon. Friend—these comments are appalling. They reflect an attitude on the left of politics that says, “If you’re not from an oppressed group, you’re not entitled to an opinion”, and I think that is fundamentally wrong. I believe that equality is for everyone, and I am not going to let this debate be dominated by a few campaign groups.

Topical Questions

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Randall Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising those issues. Hopefully, we will be in a happier place when the elections arrive because of the vaccination programme, but she raises some important issues. Just as retailers, healthcare settings and so forth have put in place measures to make them covid-secure, whether those are public health-related measures or the enforcement and policing of them, we will do the same at polling stations and at counts. We will ensure that there will still be the transparency that people want through scrutineers and so forth. We will also introduce some slight legislative changes to enable, for example, somebody who has to isolate very close to the election to still be able to cast their vote. We are working through all these issues with those organisations methodically, and we will have those elections. They will be safe, and they will still have integrity.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

What discussions he has had with the Electoral Commission on tackling electoral fraud.

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

Ministers and officials engage with the Electoral Commission on a regular basis about work to support the effective and secure running of elections at a local and parliamentary level. We will continue to work with the Electoral Commission to ensure that all elections that take place in the UK are both fair and free of any electoral fraud or attempted electoral fraud.

[Tom Randall]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her answer. In his judgment against the former Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman for electoral fraud, Richard Mawrey QC found that one council candidate had, in the space of six weeks, fought two wards in the same borough using two different names and two different false addresses. That fact came to light not through investigation by the authorities but because local residents were able to inspect copies of the electoral register under supervision. That right seems to have been thrown into doubt because of confusing guidance issued by the Electoral Commission. Could my right hon. Friend get in touch with the chief executive of the Electoral Commission to ensure that clear guidance is issued, so that members of the public looking into these measures do not find themselves prevented from accessing copies under supervision and that further cases they are looking into can come to light?

[Penny Mordaunt]

My hon. Friend raises a very important issue. Let me be crystal clear: the law is absolutely clear on this. Anyone can inspect copies of the current register under supervision. The register is a public document to enable concerned citizens, such as those he refers to, to check that registers only include those who are properly eligible. I will, of course, look into the matter that he raised, because we want clarity on this very important point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Matt Vickers—not here. Oh dear, it is not a good day. Dr Rupa Huq—not here. It is definitely not a good day.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

Yesterday, Emma McClarkin, the chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, told the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the frustration in her industry at not being privy to data or being involved in the drafting of guidance related to restrictions on hospitality. Seventy million pints were lost in the first lockdown. As brewers and publicans try to understand changing and complex data, will my right hon. Friend consider ways to involve the industry at as early a stage as possible and share as much data as possible so that clear guidance can be issued and the industry can plan ahead?

[Michael Gove]

May I, first, join you, Mr Speaker, in lamenting the absence of the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq)? I hope that she is well and—[Interruption.] Anyway, we are all rooting for her.