Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will make it her policy to work with the (a) Secretary of State for the Home Department and (b) Electoral Commission to ensure that police officers are stationed within the curtilage of polling stations in elections where incidents of (a) so-called family voting and (b) intimidation outside polling stations have been recorded in the past five years.

Existing electoral law provides protections against undue influence, intimidation and interference with the secrecy of the ballot, including measures strengthened by the Ballot Secrecy Act 2023 to address so-called ‘family voting’. Returning Officers regularly work with the police to assess known risks at individual polling stations and make appropriate arrangements. Decisions on the deployment of police officers are operational matters for individual police forces.