Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to strengthen the integrity of the postal voting system.

The British public deserves to have confidence in our democracy and the Government is committed to ensuring that our electoral system is fit for the future.

Next year, Peterborough and Pendle will be piloting measures to improve the integrity of the postal and proxy vote process. This builds on similar pilots in 2018.

In addition, the Government is looking to introduce measures which will prohibit party campaigners from handling postal votes, and apply a limit to the number of postal ballots that any one individual can hand in at a polling station. The provisions will be backed up by a new offence, and will make a significant contribution to enhancing the security of postal voting. There is currently a Government supported Private Members’ Bill in the House of Commons looking to introduce this policy.

The Government is considering the way forward on the other recommendations made by Sir Eric Pickles, a number of which relate to absent voting, and will continue to consider how to improve the integrity of electoral processes more generally.

The Government is committed to strengthening our electoral processes and enhancing public confidence in the rigour of those democratic processes.