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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the Answer of 1 July 2021 to Question 23232 on Elections: Proof of Identity, if he will make an estimate of (a) how many and (b) what the cost will be of privacy screens that will be required under voter ID requirements at the next general election.

The Government remains fully committed to addressing the serious issue of fraud in elections. Building on the introduction by the then Labour Government in 2001 of a requirement for photographic identification for elections in Northern Ireland, the 2022 Elections Act introduces a similar requirement for elections across Great Britain.

The Elections Act 2022 lists accepted forms of identification, including student identity cards covered by the PASS scheme.

The Government has published a Voter Identification Impact Assessment which includes details on training, and privacy screens and other equipment. It is anticipated that a privacy screen will only be required when there is no private room or area in the polling place to carry out identification checks. However, as the proportion of polling places with private areas is unknown, cost estimates assumed one privacy screen per polling station and are therefore over estimates.