Tag: Speeches

Tom Tugendhat – 2022 Speech to Policy Exchange

The speech made by Tom Tugendhat, the Security Minister, at Policy Exchange on 13 December 2022.

I’d like to talk about an evolving threat that we are seeing, an emerging threat, which is of course state threats to our democracy and indeed others.

I think we should start by recognising what a remarkable achievement the United Kingdom is. It’s not just four nations come together but actually a patchwork of many more nations than that under a single flag.

It wasn’t that long ago in historical terms, just over a thousand years ago that people owed allegiance to kings in Kent and Fife, in Ulster and Strathclyde. But those kingdoms have intertwined and through a combination of stories and law we’ve made ourselves into one of the most extraordinary countries in the world. We’ve exported stability, we’ve exported principles and the regulations that have constructed a world of free trade and freedom that has made so many prosperous and enabled so much happiness.

Now this unity was built on shared stories of our past, creating what has become a firm foundation for our future. And it was only possible because the stories that we were able to tell each other, the stories, the myths, the histories turned around to bind the people together. To give us a common foundation. A common root. But those stories that unite can also divide, and today we are seeing that shared understanding fray, we are seeing stories twisted and corrupted deliberately to sow confusion and division.

We’re seeing threats to our politics and, because of that, to our nation.

And, I’m not saying this just because I happen to be a very strong unionist, and I believe that our union is one of the pillars of liberty in the world. I don’t need to make that argument – our role in the United Nations, in NATO, in the Commonwealth, in the World Trade Organisation and many, many other organisations besides points to the essential role that our union has had in creating a safer and more prosperous world. I make the argument because we’re not just dealing with just competing narratives today, we’re dealing with false ones.

Disinformation matters. It can shape debate and it can change outcomes.

Now this is because democracy isn’t just an event, it’s a process. It’s how we talk to each other, not just how we decide the future in a ballot box. But how we shape that future through discussion. It’s as much about journalists, lawyers, businesses and civic activists as it is about politicians.

Fundamentally, it’s about citizens. How we participate, what we do, in every community, is just as important as what is done to us.

That’s why joining political parties, getting together with friends and neighbours, championing ideas and choosing candidates, is the bedrock of our democracy and the heart of our freedom.

Because democracy can no more be reduced to an election than an economy can be reduced to a market.

Defending it demands us to understand what matters throughout our society, not just on polling day.

Now, some have understood this better than many in free countries. They see the source of our strength and have understood the levers that can be used to weaken us.

Spreading division and lies, challenging the narratives that enable our national conversation and debate, make us less resilient, more brittle and at greater risk.

And our response must be about more than just protecting politicians or elections.

I don’t want to confuse however debate for division. It’s entirely right for us to debate our constitution and our laws. It is essential for our freedom that we do.

We should argue and disagree. A 99% approval rating may sound wonderful if you’re North Korean, but it is truly the sign of a dictatorship not of a democracy.

What is critical is that we should know where the arguments are coming from. We should know that these debates are triggered by the interests of our nation and our communities. By the peoples who we should rightly be representing.

We shouldn’t be having them triggered by outside forces and a hidden hand. For too long, foreign interference has been slowly creeping into British democracy.

And as Security Minister, much of what comes across my desk is acute threats. Quite obviously those are the ones that we respond to immediately.

But it is the strategic threats to our democracy – because the acts are part of a systematic campaign over a long period of time, to degrade our sovereignty – that concern me most.

They are threats not just to life; they are threats to our way of life.

This emerging era of state-based threats isn’t just Le Carré – it’s not the silent battle of shadows – but a challenge to our future and to our society.

And it’s not a secret that state-based threats are growing and coming from many different sources as competition intensifies, impacting countries across the world including the United Kingdom and our allies.

Now we’ve seen Russia’s abhorrent and illegal invasion of Ukraine. We’ve seen the attacks around Europe, indeed, the Estonian Ambassador is here and who can talk about the attacks we’ve seen on his great country over the last decade or so. We’ve even seen attacks here in London and in Salisbury, that have sadly cost the life of one British individual and one Russian.

Now from China we’ve seen increased militarisation, and the growing tension over Taiwan.

And Iran’s malign behaviour in the Middle East directly threatens our partners and our interests, they are brutally suppressing courageous people in the streets who are calling for an end to the control of a corrupt and corrupted religious and security elite claiming authority from God.

All of this is clear, much of it has been clear for some time.

What’s new is that we’re seeing this grow at home.

During the Covid pandemic, we saw Moscow try to sow disinformation. We saw fake news bots, trying to promote different arguments, false arguments on social media.

In our universities we’ve seen debate silenced by voices controlled by Beijing, and now, we’re seeing Tehran try to exploit similar routes.

As the head of MI5 put it recently, the Iranian regime is projecting its campaign to silence dissent directly to the UK, with at least ten such threats since January, as he said. Now, as recently as last month, I – along with other MPs – were sadly given security guidance because of the Iranian threat.

Since Ken McCallum’s speech just a few weeks ago, we have seen even more out of Iran. This has is not and has not yet finished.

And we’ve seen states including China and their United Front Work Department try to silence incredibly courageous academics, who are trying to exercise the freedom that every academic in the United Kingdom should enjoy.

All those are attempts to silence our national debate and to shape our democracies.

All of those demand responses.

There is a deeper layer. The activity that hides itself in online platforms and undermines our democratic discourse is like a poison seeping through the body politic. It’s degrading the media environment and attacking our free speech.

Russian disinformation on Twitter is increasingly obvious. And the bots that we’re seeing attack Ukrainian voices or try to silence those calling out the Kremlin’s human rights abuses in Syria are now often, thank goodness, written about.

And as the Foreign Affairs Committee, which I was privileged to chair, reported in 2019, Chinese-encouraged smothering of dissent, even beyond its borders, is another.

That’s why we need to look beyond the sources of disinformation and to its channels.

As Ofcom reported, only recently, the reach of newspapers and online sources has fallen from roughly a half in 2020, to below 40 percent in just two years. Over that same period, TikTok has gone as a news source, from having 1 percent to 7 percent take up.

Now that may not sound like a lot, but when you look at the group of younger people, 16-24 year olds, you’ll see that the figure is much higher. Instagram, YouTube and TikTok are all about a third of the news sources young people turn to, outstripping their reliance on the ITV or BBC networks.

The influence of social media platforms on our younger generations here in the United Kingdom and around the world is pervasive. The content on these platforms will, of course, influence minds. Yet it’s worth noting that foreign states hold considerable sway over the algorithms that are the editor on these sources.

The challenge for a free country like ours is how we manage this debate. How we keep a society free and open as the last Integrated Review committed us to, quite rightly, while defending ourselves from the dishonesty that could tear us apart.

The same challenge applies to the platforms themselves. They profit from the liberty that allows the trade in ideas and goods. Ensuring they defend that liberty is not asking them to be altruistic, it’s asking them to invest in their own futures.

We believe in the liberty of shared views, we believe in the liberty of ideas, we also believe in the liberty of cat videos. But we also need to balance all of this with the reality of the world that we live in.

To update to the Integrated Review, we are going to have to consider many of these issues in the round and the challenges that they pose to us all.

And when it comes to tackling foreign influence and malign activity, our National Security Bill, currently in the House of Lords, will modernise our outdated laws and provide the foundations for being better able to protect our people and our institutions from state-based threats.

Specifically, our Foreign Influence Registration Scheme has been created to tackle covert influence in the United Kingdom.

The scheme’s aims are twofold, to strengthen the resilience of the United Kingdom political system against covert foreign influence and to provide greater assurance around the activities of specified foreign powers or entities.

Those who are working on covert political interference will I’m afraid face a simple choice: they will have to register and highlight the activities they seek to hide, or not – and risk prosecution.

The scheme will not impose restrictions on legitimate activities of people or businesses – it is here to encourage openness and transparency – and it is necessary precisely because we know that those who wish to do us harm are using the shadows to evolve new techniques.

Together, these threats challenge our democracy. Some are state threats, others are from groups trying to distort us for other reasons.

This government – is taking them all extremely seriously.

The Prime Minister has demonstrated he’s serious about it and about tackling state threats, and the specific threat to our democratic resilience, by asking me to lead the Defending Democracy Taskforce.

Now, this is not just about guarding ministers or protecting technology. Nor even about MPs and those elected across our country to serve our communities in the parliaments and assemblies and councils. Despite the tragedies that all of us have seen in recent years, despite the recognition that is so important, that is not only what this is about. It’s about making sure that all of us, as citizens, are free and able to debate the ideas and choose the future that makes us strong.

Its primary focus will be to protect the democratic integrity of the United Kingdom from threats of foreign influence.

We will work across government and with Parliament, the United Kingdom’s intelligence community, the devolved administrations, local authorities, the private sector and civil society on the full range of threats facing our democratic institutions.

It will be looking at foreign interference in our elections and electoral process; disinformation; physical and cyber threats to the democratic institutions and those who represent them; foreign interference in public office, political parties and universities; and what we call transnational repression. What we mean by that is the activity of those who seek to stifle free expression in diaspora communities in the UK, those who try to silence the debate that they, as anyone else in the United Kingdom, should be able to enjoy. We have seen the most recent example of this in the so-called overseas police stations that China has set up around the country, and indeed around the world.

I’ve reached out to Five Eyes partners and I am keen to work closely with European and other international friends to tackle state threats together. This is not just a British problem. This is a problem that all democracies face and sadly too many autocracies are trying to use.

Over the past decade we have seen the evolving threat to our national life and begun to understand the form it is truly taking.

The challenges we face to our democracy and national security from state-based foreign threats, now and in the years to come, are serious, complex and abundant.

They will not be solved quickly. They will not be solved by government acting alone.

All of us, individuals and organisations, have a role in defending our freedoms, and we best start by understanding and debating the threats that we face.

For all of our achievements as a country – from innovation and scientific discovery, to economic prosperity, cultural wealth and the cohesion that has made this country so extraordinarily rich and strong – it is our freedom that enables it all.

As we look to the challenges of the future – and yes, there are many – the essential lesson of the past is that dictatorships may look solid in the short term, but they can’t manage change. Real stability, real resilience, comes from debate, from discussion and the democracy that flows from it.

Protecting democracy is essential to us all.

December 14, 2022
Helen Morgan – 2022 Speech on Voter ID at Elections

The speech made by Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, in the House of Commons on 12 December 2022.

In mid-October, the Chancellor of the Exchequer stood here and warned us that eye-wateringly difficult decisions would need to be made by the Government to stabilise public finances following the disastrous October mini-Budget, yet today we are being asked to pass regulations and put the final touches to a scheme that will cost £180 million over the next 10 years to solve the issue of just 33 allegations of voter fraud in 2019, with only one conviction and one caution. That might look like good value for money to the Conservatives, but the truth is that it is a staggering waste of money. In the midst of a cost of living crisis and a self-inflicted financial disaster, it beggars belief that this scheme is going ahead. Our councils are cutting critical services because of extreme financial pressure and we should not be burdening them with the additional cost of a scheme that is totally unnecessary. Whether it is for mirrors, privacy screens or ID cards, it is all a complete waste of their time.

But is worse than that: not only is photo ID for voting not really needed, but the plan is not even expected to work particularly well. The chair of the Electoral Commission has told Ministers that the plans cannot be delivered in a way that is

“fully secure, accessible, and workable”

in time for next May’s local elections. The Conservative chair of the Local Government Association is calling for the implementation of voter ID to be delayed because the LGA simply does not have time to get the plans in place for May without access to votes being put at risk.

The most worrying element, as colleagues have pointed out, is that the likely effect of all this will be selective voter suppression. Research has shown that there might be around 3.5 million people without the right ID and that those people are more likely to be the most vulnerable in society, such as those with limiting disabilities, as well as younger voters, black and ethnic minorities and the least well off in society. The Cabinet Office has already admitted that around 42% of those without photo ID are estimated to be unlikely to apply for a voter ID card. The proposed acceptable forms of ID include a 60+ Oyster card or bus pass, but not the young person’s equivalent. This will disproportionately disadvantage students and young people. The Government have shown no concern at all about the possibility of postal voter fraud, which will not require any form of ID; I fear that is down to the fact that postal voters are most likely to be older and to vote Conservative, while the young and the other groups I have mentioned are more likely to support an Opposition party.

There is no need to go into any further detail. In summary, I urge the House to consider the facts: we do not need photo ID, we cannot afford to implement the scheme and the proposals will simply lead to voter suppression. This Government should be trying to give the next generation a reason to vote for them, not to suppress their view because they have offered them nothing. Scrapping this legislation is not an eye-wateringly difficult decision. It would be a common-sense course of action. The Liberal Democrats are determined to end this legislation and I therefore urge all Members to vote against it today.

December 13, 2022
Luke Pollard – 2022 Speech on Voter ID at Elections

The speech made by Luke Pollard, the Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, in the House of Commons on 12 December 2022.

The proposal will result in voter suppression, and I want to raise a number of concerns about its implementation, based on feedback from colleagues on Plymouth City Council, which represents one of the poorest communities in the country. Being in the south-west of England, surrounded by lovely beaches and gorgeous countryside, we are often not considered to be one of the poorest communities, but many of the problems experienced by some of the poorest communities in the north and the midlands are also present in the south-west.

I greatly fear that this proposal will not increase turnout, and I think that any Government who seek to introduce electoral reforms with the objective of not increasing turnout should look again at why they are doing it. What is their motivation? The proposal will cut turnout; in certain target demographics, the Conservative party will have a partisan advantage over other parties, which should also make us look again at the reasons for the proposal.

Many of the concerns were expressed during a group discussion between Councillor Tudor Evans, the leader of the Labour opposition on Plymouth City Council, and his councillors. I think they are genuinely meaningful, and I should be grateful if the Minister responded to them when he sums up the debate. One of them relates to the number of people who might be unable to obtain voter ID. On the basis of Government figures, the council estimates that about 4% of voters—8,000 people in Plymouth—will not have access to the photo ID that will be required for them to vote, which means that a great many people will not be able to cast their ballot without embarking on a bureaucratic process to secure it.

The concern in this regard is that councils will not be able, in the time that is allowed, to process the necessary number of applications. Councils are not full of staff twiddling their thumbs and looking idle, but they do not have the capacity to enable electoral officers to work flat out to process these IDs. Even if it were possible for that to be done on time—which it is not—resources would be diverted from jobs on which councils should be focusing.

Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)

My hon. Friend is right to say that this is about the disenfranchisement of, in particular, young people and black and ethnic minorities. As he also said, it is impractical too. The Local Government Association has talked of delaying the timetable beyond the local elections. I am fundamentally against the proposal and will vote accordingly, but I hope my hon. Friend agrees that we need to look again at this unrealistic timetable.

Luke Pollard

I agree that the timetable is important. Regardless of party, we should all be seeking to make good legislation, with a good outcome. Rushed legislation will not lead to a good outcome, and I fear that rushed legislation is exactly what we have before us.

One of the concerns that many councils have is that the software required for them to produce valid certificates enabling people to vote if they do not have what legislation defines as legitimate forms of photo ID will not arrive until the start of next year, and has not been tested and integrated into other local IT systems that councils possess. Even councils that want to process the IDs for as many people as possible cannot yet do so. Plymouth City Council estimates that it will take eight minutes to process a single piece of voter ID for someone who does not have one, and 8,000 people in Plymouth do not have one. That means an awful lot of work: someone will be working their socks off to be able to deliver it.

This will also involve additional bureaucracy and cost. I asked a parliamentary question about the number of mirrors that would be required for the legislation to work, which produced some very puzzled faces. Why was I asking about mirrors? The answer is that the legislation will require 40,000 mirrors to be purchased by local councils to enable people in polling stations to readjust their masks or religious garments after taking them off to demonstrate that they are who they are, should they be asked to do so. It will also require the purchase of 40,000 privacy screens so that people can do that outside the public gaze, particularly for religious reasons.

Furthermore, the legislation will require a woman to be present as one of the polling clerk staff throughout the day. I think we should be seeking more women to be polling clerks, but we know that many polling stations do not have female coverage across the entirety of the day. That would now be required, under these regulations, so we are asking councils that are deeply in debt and struggling to afford social care for some of our poorest people to go on to eBay and buy mirrors. We would need one mirror for every polling station and we would probably need some spares in case one got smashed along the way.

It is a warped priority for councils to be buying mirrors, so can the Minister say whether the Government will be providing privacy screens and mirrors for every single polling station, or whether that cost will be put on to hard-pressed council taxpayers? I suspect that if the parties were in opposite positions and we were introducing this, Conservative Members would be saying, “Look at this Labour Government waste, buying mirrors and privacy screens.” Why is that not being said here? The £180 million cost is a significant amount of money that should be being spent on social care. The Tory-run Plymouth City Council is £37 million in deficit at the moment, and I want it to spend every single penny on essential public services, not on this type of bureaucracy.

Another concern I would like the Minister to address is the safety of polling clerks at the polling stations. We have to assume that refusing people or asking them for ID will generate a certain level of friction among some of the people seeking to cast their vote. Plymouth has 105 polling stations and there is real concern about what advice has been and will be given to those polling clerks about what happens if that friction turns into violence. Will there be adequate policing resources available on polling day to ensure that those polling clerks are safe when they ask people for ID or when they have to refuse them? What about the people who do not return when they have been refused? Our SNP colleague, the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan), estimated that this would involve nearly a third of the people. That is an enormous number of people who might be in possession of the correct form of identification but do not have it with them when they go to vote. That is an awful lot of people who simply will not return, and not just for that election, because it will damage their voting experience for the rest of their lives.

I want to put on record a concern about the rural impact of the proposal. People who live in an urban area who are refused because they have left their ID at home might be able to walk back to their polling station easily, but those who live in a rural area and must travel large distances to get to their polling station are less likely to return. There is an urban-rural divide.

How will the Minister judge the success or failure of this measure? We know that there has been only one conviction, so in the Minister’s eyes, how many people being refused their right to vote will class the proposal a success, and what is the level at which it tips over to be a failure? I think that a single person being denied the right to vote is a failure, but I understand that the Government have taken a different view, and I would like to understand how many people must be turned away for this not to be successful.

This is not a piece of legislation of which the House can be proud. More importantly, it is not a piece of legislation of which the Minister should be proud. After this piece of voter suppression delivers partisan advantage in May and turns out to be a failure because people are refused their right to vote on a widespread basis—heaven help us if there is violence or if a poll clerk gets injured because of this—what do the Government think success looks like? Denying people their vote is never a success; it is always a failure, and I think that is what this piece of legislation will be.

December 13, 2022
Richard Burgon – 2022 Speech on Voter ID at Elections

The speech made by Richard Burgon, the Labour MP for Leeds East, in the House of Commons on 12 December 2022.

I have listened with great interest to the Minister’s assurances to the House and the country, but it will not surprise Conservative Members to learn that I am not assured, nor will my constituents be assured.

Tony Benn talked of the importance of the vote. He talked very movingly of the way in which universal suffrage had helped to transfer power from the marketplace to the ballot box, giving our citizens the right to obtain through voting what they could not obtain through their wallets, whether it be free healthcare, free education, or a say in our country’s laws. That right is under threat from these regulations, which are littered with discriminatory inconsistencies. They are not, in fact, a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but, in my view, a deliberate voter suppression strategy—a strategy not to suppress just any voters, but to suppress certain groups of voters in particular.

These regulations are straight out of the right-wing United States Republican playbook. Over there, they try to find ways of stopping people being able to vote. How else can we explain the way in which young people are discriminated against in the regulations? I believe they are a deliberate voter suppression strategy against working-class communities in particular, and, in particular, black and ethnic minority working-class communities and young working-class people, because the Conservatives have taken the view that those are the people who are less likely to vote for them.

The regulations also have a broader context that should disturb all of us who are concerned about hard-won British democratic freedoms. In our society, there are three main ways for people to fight back against unpopular policies or express discontent with a Government they do not like, or an employer they do not like. There is the right to protest peacefully, the right to take industrial action and withdraw labour, and, of course, the right to vote. These regulations on voter ID need to be seen within the context of an authoritarian drift on the part of a Government who have in their sights the right to protest peacefully, the right to take strike action, and the right to vote with ease. That is profoundly disturbing. The Members on the other side of the debate are probably split between those who believe that this is necessary and desirable and those who do not really believe that it is necessary and desirable, but are going along with it because they are going along with that authoritarian drift.

Even if we were to accept the introduction of voter ID, which I and others certainly do not, when we look at the inconsistencies in the regulations with regard to which voter ID is acceptable and which is not, we see that it is a real dog’s dinner—a real anti-democratic dog’s dinner. These regulations should send a shiver down the spines of all those who believe in civil and democratic liberties in our society. They should send a shiver down the spines of people, regardless of their political views, who believe that the right of every citizen to vote, the right of every worker to withdraw labour and the right of every citizen to engage in peaceful protest are rights that were hard won and should be cherished and defended. It is because we defend those hard-won civil liberties and principles that we oppose these regulations, and oppose this Government’s disgraceful authoritarian drift.

December 13, 2022
Ronnie Cowan – 2022 Speech on Voter ID at Elections

The speech made by Ronnie Cowan, the SNP MP for Inverclyde, in the House of Commons on 12 December 2022.

When we stand for election, every one of us appeals to the electorate to get out and vote. We impress on them how important it is that they use their democratic right to express their will through the ballot box. We want bigger turnouts and we seek more and better engagement, yet voter ID will have a detrimental effect on turnouts. We know that because we can measure it.

The UK Government have tried on several occasions to justify voter identification cards by stating that they already exist within the UK: they are used in Northern Ireland. What they cannot say with any conviction is that they have been a success in Northern Ireland. In fact, the turnout in the first election in Northern Ireland after photographic ID was introduced was 2.3% down. If we extrapolate from the data to a UK general election, approximately 1.1 million people would not vote. That would not fall evenly across the population, so who is it that we are disenfranchising?

Angela Kitching, head of external affairs at Age UK, points out that the Government’s own research has found that 6% of people over 70 would have problems with presenting the right kind of ID. It is reasonable to believe that that estimate is low, because the UK Government did not include the 500,000 people in care homes and sheltered accommodation in their research. It is no surprise that Angela Kitching has described the idea as being “for the fairies”.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People says that

“this will disproportionately disenfranchise blind and partially sighted people, particularly older blind and partially sighted people.”

The Royal Mencap Society has raised concerns that

“voter ID could simply result in yet another barrier to people with a learning disability participating in elections.”

Sense, the national charity that supports people with complex disabilities, has also raised concerns, saying:

“Given the barriers that already face disabled people while voting, Sense is concerned that this could make it harder for some disabled people to vote.”

Concerns have been raised by groups representing LGBTQ+ communities, including the LGBT Foundation, Mermaids and Stonewall. The Runnymede Trust has raised concerns that introducing a voter ID requirement would add further barriers to voting for black and ethnic minority groups.

Those groups should not be disadvantaged. Their votes and their views are not worth less. Pilots have shown that 30% of people who had their ballot paper refused for lack of ID did not return later with an ID to vote. Were all those people trying to impersonate someone? I do not think so.

As has been mentioned, this measure will disproportionately impact younger voters. ID such as an Oyster 60+ card is valid, but an Oyster 18+ card is not. Despite the calls for railcards or student IDs to be accepted, the Government have refused.

Of course, change attracts a financial cost. Disappointingly, the UK Government do not know how much this change will cost. Their assessment is £150 million, based on an assumed take-up of 2%, but a UK Government survey found that 31% of people said they would apply for a voter ID card. The impact assessment estimates that an additional £10.2 million should be added for each additional percentage point, which brings the cost of that 31% to £450 million.

In truth, we do not know, because the people surveyed were not informed of the existing photographic ID that would be acceptable, nor were they informed that out-of-date photographic ID would be acceptable. There is more confusion on which we are supposed to legislate: we need a clearer explanation of how having a period of validity for a voter card could work if its expiry date was not a bar to using it for its sole purpose at a polling station.

What is driving this change? Photographic voter ID is supposed to be required to address the issue of personation —occasions when somebody pretends to be another elector and votes on their behalf. We are asking people who work a very long day in polling places to verify visually that each voter looks like the photo ID that they present and, if they are not happy, to refuse that person the right to vote. That is a burden that will weigh heavily on many of those who, until now, have diligently staffed polling places.

For us to go to such lengths as introducing photographic voter ID, placing such a burden on electoral staff and risking disenfranchising 1.1 million voters, personation would have to be a massive problem. Yet, as the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said, with more than 58 million votes cast in elections in 2019, there were 33 counts of personation at a polling station. As we have heard, that comprises 0.000057%. When we consider the number of people cautioned for or convicted of personation, the proportion is reduced to 0.0000035% of votes cast. This is a sledgehammer looking for a nut to crack. It is a solution looking for a problem. The long and short of it is that this legislation has been pushed through with little substantial evidence of its value.

For as long as Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom and Westminster has the power to affect the voting franchise and the electoral process in Scotland—even if that involves elections to this place—we in the Scottish National party will hold Westminster to account, and will demand that any changes must be transparent, considered, constructive and inclusive. The motion does not satisfy those criteria.

December 13, 2022
Justin Tomlinson – 2022 Speech on Voter ID at Elections

The speech made by Justin Tomlinson, the Conservative MP for North Swindon, in the House of Commons on 12 December 2022.

I will make just a few quick comments. My seat of North Swindon, as part of the Swindon Borough Council area, was part of one of the initial pilots in 2017 or 2018, so I want to make a few observations. First, turnout was up, not down. Secondly, when the pilot came to an end and we were not made part of the bigger pilot, we were inundated with complaints, because people thought that the new system was far better. That is why I am very pleased to advocate this welcome change.

I have a bit of a soft spot for the deputy leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), perhaps because we have similar music tastes. She talked about trusting people. I have now had not one, not two, not three, not four, but five Labour opponents. I can assure her that every single time one of them has been selected, the adverts for the selection meetings—in which, of course, we take a mild interest—very clearly say, “You must bring voter ID.”

The whole thrust of the argument against the draft regulations is that the number of people looking to cheat the system is so small. That seems to indicate that the right hon. Lady believes that North Swindon Labour party members must all be truly terrible people—that the terrible people must all be consolidated there. I want to reassure her that that is not the case. They are actually very nice people.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)

The hon. Gentleman is misinterpreting the Labour rules, is he not? They do not require photo ID; they require any ID. They allow student ID, student bus cards and student railcards, all of which the Government have excluded in their gerrymandering efforts. Does he acknowledge that this Government have gerrymandered voter ID?

Justin Tomlinson

The hon. Gentleman, bless him, has got absolutely muddled. As he would have seen from the pilots if he had taken the time to look, anybody can access IDs. They are commissioned by the local authorities. It is straightforward.

The proof of the pudding was that turnout in Swindon was up during the pilot. Sadly, that pilot came to an end and we were not part of the second pilot, so we were inundated with complaints. People want to have trust in our democracy. The regulations are a brilliant thing to have brought forward.

Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)

The hon. Member talks about increased turnout. One of the highest turnouts in British history was for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, which had a very clear result: Scotland voted to remain part of the United Kingdom. A conspiracy theory was circulated at the time that votes would be altered if people put their cross in the box with a pencil instead of a biro or a pen. That was rubbished by the general public and put in the dustbin where it belonged. Should we not trust the great British public to get these things right, as they have in the past?

Justin Tomlinson

Yes, it is about trust: trust in our world-leading democracy and trust in making sure that we can safeguard what matters. I will not stray into conspiracy theories about Scottish elections, but trust is the proof of the pudding. When there was a pilot in my constituency, voter turnout went up and people complained when the pilot came to an end. It is quite straightforward.

Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)

The hon. Member talks about trust. Trust is incredibly important, so can he tell me why anybody should trust the Conservative party when it comes to voter fraud, given that its last leadership election—not the coronation that we have just had, but the leadership election—was delayed because of security fears and possible breaches of ballot paper processes?

Justin Tomlinson

If there is ever any question of any threat in any form, it should always be investigated. The sun comes up in the morning—it is that obvious.

I say to the Minister: hold firm. This is what the public want. It has worked in the pilots, and proceeding with it is an absolute must.

December 13, 2022
Mick Lynch – 2022 Interview with Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid

The interview between Richard Madeley/Susanna Reid and Mick Lynch on Good Morning Britain on 13 December 2022.

INTERVIEWER

[Asked Lynch why he had changed his mind on keeping the Christmas period strike free]

MICK LYNCH

Something’s changed, Network Rail have decided from Wednesday to start imposing their unacceptable changes that our members have just voted against. They have told us that no matter what happens they will impose work-life balance changes, changes to the working practices and the cuts to the safety inspection regime on the railway by 50 percent. So we had to respond to that, so the additional strike action that we’re putting on is during the Christmas shutdown, as from Christmas Eve the railway shuts down for engineering work. During that period our members will take additional strike action which is frankly targeted at Network Rail’s engineering works rather than the passenger service.

INTERVIEWER

[Asked if the strike was just about pay]

MICK LYNCH

Network Rail are bringing a series of changes on what they call a modernising maintenance program that involves cutting 50 percent of maintenance scheduled tasks, so it will cut the safety regime and the inspection regime by 50 percent. They want to move our members to a far greater level of unsocial hours, so Saturday nights, weekend work, midweek nights, they’re seeking to change their competency levels as they want them to work outside their current skill levels and we’ll keep talking to the company on that, but at the moment their proposals
are not acceptable. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t reach a compromise, so for many of our members in Network Rail pay is secondary to the changes to their working lives and the fact that they probably won’t see their families at the levels that they’re used to. The unsocial hours element is very important to them.

On the train operating companies they want to shut every booking office in Britain, they want to bring in driver-only operation and many other changes to our people’s terms and conditions that are not acceptable at this stage, all at a cut price way below inflation pay
increase on both of those companies.

INTERVIEWER

[Asked Lynch if some of his supporters were opposed to the strikes as they were almost sadists for the strike at this time of year? Why were strikes not in January?]

MICK LYNCH

We’re not targeting Christmas, it isn’t Christmas yet Richard I don’t know when your Christmas starts, but mine starts on Christmas Eve.

INTERVIEWER

[Called Lynch disingenuous]

MICK LYNCH

You’re ranting Richard. Have you finished? I have answered the question, if you give me a minute, I will answer.

INTERVIEWER

[Accused Lynch of talking nonsense, that Christmas doesn’t begin on Christmas Eve]

MICK LYNCH

Richard, why don’t you just interview yourself if you want to?

INTERVIEWER

[Said he was holding Lynch to account]

MICK LYNCH

Well you can’t interrupt me if you don’t let me talk.

INTERVIEWER

[Asked Lynch why action was being taken over the Christmas period]

MICK LYNCH

Are you going to let me speak now? I’ve told you that Network Rail will start imposing these changes from 15 December. They told us that three weeks ago, they told us that the consultation process had finished and they will move towards implementation so our strike action is
is in response to that. The strike action we’re taking at Christmas is during the Christmas close down where there will be no passenger services running after the evening of 24 December, so that does not impact on Christmas because the railway is closed down from the 25th to
the 26th into the 27th and that’s when we’re taking the action that you’re referring to. This week’s action was given with three weeks notice, well in advance so that we could get negotiations going and we haven’t actually had strike action for eight weeks, so there’s been plenty of time for the company to come up proposals that may be acceptable and our members have rejected those proposals on Network Rail on a turnout of 83%, two-thirds of them voted against the proposals, so we have to move this dispute forward.

I have no intention of spoiling people’s Christmas, the government is is contributing to that, that spoiling of people’s Christmas because they’ve brought these strikes on by stopping the companies from making suitable proposals. That’s the position that we’re in and we’ll have to keep this dispute going until we get a reasonable settlement and a reasonable set of proposals that our members want to accept.

[INTERVIEWER]

[Asked Lynch if this was in the hands of the Government and do the RMT need public support for these strike actions?]

MICK LYNCH

Didn’t you run a poll on your show last week where two-thirds of the respondents said that they supported the strikes, that’s after we announced them? I saw a poll on Yougov last week that said that the public was still supporting our railway strikes.

INTERVIEWER

[Questioned whether that support was still present?]

MICK LYNCH

What did the poll that your program ran online last week say?

INTERVIEWER

[Said they didn’t know]

MICK LYNCH

Well, I know. It was on your programme last week and we’ve got two-thirds of the support. We’ve still got plenty of time before the Christmas Eve strikes if Andrew Haines, the train operating companies, Hugh Merriman the Rail Minister and Mark Harper the Secretary of State, want to come to me with a set of serious proposals to improve their offer so that we can get a settlement to the dispute we’ll come over and see them as soon as possible. They’ve already invited me to a set of talks and we’ll attend those to try and get a settlement to this dispute. When our members decide that they want to accept it, that’s when the dispute will be finished.

December 13, 2022
Jeffrey Donaldson – 2022 Comments on the Irish Common Travel Area

The comments made by Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the Leader of the DUP, on 6 December 2022.

On 6th December 1922 the Common Travel Area came into being. It is so ingrained as part of life across these islands that we can sometimes overlook its significance. The House of Commons library estimated that the number of people living in the UK who were born in the Republic of Ireland is equivalent to around 1% of the Republic’s population. There are just over a quarter of a million people born in the UK and resident in the Republic.

The Common Travel Area was a sensible and practical arrangement established between the United Kingdom and the then newly formed Irish Free State. It has worked to the benefit of both countries over the past 100 years and enjoys the support of people in both jurisdictions. This stands in stark contrast to the Northern Ireland Protocol which has not only failed in its objectives but also does not enjoy support across the community in Northern Ireland.

The Common Travel Area long pre-dated the entry of either the UK or Ireland to the European Union. Whilst the Common Travel Area has been based on a concept designed to facilitate everyone, the Protocol has been based on punitive measures imposed against the UK under the cover of rhetoric about the Belfast Agreement. On this centenary we should return to the positive and practical principles demonstrated by the Common Travel Area and seek to emulate them in finding a solution to the Protocol.

December 13, 2022
Angela Rayner – 2022 Speech on Voter ID at Elections

The speech made by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, in the House of Commons on 12 December 2022.

I would like to say that it is a pleasure to speak in this debate, but frankly, I am sad that we have reached this point. It is a stain on Britain’s democratic history that, if the Government have their way with these regulations, we will take a historic step away from making our democracy more open and accessible and towards closing it down, shutting people out and making it harder to vote.

Opposition Members have been clear from the start that this legislation is a wasted opportunity. It is a step backwards at a time when so many improvements are needed to widen participation in our democracy and to make it fit for the 21st century. The regulations arise from a slapdash, short-sighted and politically motivated act that turns the clock back on democratic progress. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) for his work throughout the stages of the Elections Act 2022, highlighting the dangers of mandatory photo ID, which we are debating today. I thank him for helping to secure this debate on the Floor of the House when Ministers would no doubt have preferred to sneak it through upstairs.

The basic fact is that voter ID is not only a backwards step for democracy, but completely pointless. It is a solution in search of a problem. Ministers claim it will combat voter fraud, but voter personation—the voter fraud which voter ID apparently targets—is vanishingly rare. Over the last 10 years, there have been about 243 million votes cast in elections, and how many people have been convicted of voter fraud? Four. That is 0.00000005%. I am under no illusion that the Government are in the slightest bit interested in genuinely tackling fraud. The Tories’ Minister responsible for fraud summarised it when he resigned at the Dispatch Box, saying that the Government had

“no knowledge of, or little interest in, the consequences of fraud to our economy or society.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 January 2022; Vol. 818, c. 20.]

While the Government focus on measures like these regulations, serious fraud, where criminals target vulnerable people with scams to steal bank details, is running rife under this Government. Our economy loses around £190 billion every year to fraud—more than the UK spends on health and defence combined. People are being left terrorised by scammers pretending to be their banks, mobile networks or family members, but instead of actually tackling that, the Government are using parliamentary time to tackle the virtually non-existent crime of voter personation, costing millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money to boot.

Justin Tomlinson

Will the right hon. Member explain why, if the system is so bad, it is used in Labour selections?

Angela Rayner

I have just explained why this is such a tiny, not even significant, minuscule issue that the Government are trying to make hay over, when, in fact, we have fraud that results in people being terrorised by scammers pretending to be their banks. Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being wasted on this Bill instead of dealing with the fraud that the hon. Member’s constituents have to face every single day, which is not being tackled. He needs to tackle that.

Perhaps the Minister lives in a bizarre alternative reality where, across the country, people are attempting to impersonate their neighbours to steal their votes, but meanwhile, in this universe, you are more likely to be hit by lightning 54 times than fall victim to voter personation fraud. So let us get back to the reality that we face. The British public face a cost of living crisis, freezing temperatures, with people too scared to put their heating on, and cancelled Christmases, with working parents unable to afford festive treats. And this Conservative Government are planning to spend £180 million of taxpayers’ money to introduce a completely pointless and eye-wateringly expensive change.

Aaron Bell

We heard evidence from the police in the Bill Committee. They thought that the measures on voter ID and the extra measures that we are taking to avoid intimidation would make the Act really useful for them on polling day, so that they can get on with the job that we want them to do—that is, to keep our communities safe—and not have to spend as much time dealing with cases of personation at polling stations.

Angela Rayner

I say to the hon. Member: show us the evidence. Where is the evidence of that? We have not seen the evidence, but we do know that people are choosing between heating and eating this winter. We do know that crime is on the rise and that people just do not see the police on the beat any more. We do know that people are targeted by online fraud every single day of the week, with no protection and no action by their Government.

I ask the Minister: why will he not spend his time and energy tackling the huge array of issues that face the British people instead of flushing away yet more hard-earned taxpayers’ cash on this pointless measure? I might be able to hazard a guess. I notice that the regulations allow 60-plus, but not 18-plus, Oyster cards—why is that? I notice that OAP bus passes will be valid, yet students IDs will not—why is that? I notice that some 4.2 million voters do not have a photo ID allowed by these regulations, yet the Government demand that we plough on—why is that?

The Minister said that voter ID does not discriminate, but I am afraid that the evidence does not quite stack up. When the Minister’s colleague, a former Cabinet Office Minister—the right hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith)—said that

“the evidence of our pilots shows that there is no impact on any particular demographic group from this policy.”—[Official Report, 11 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 394.]—

the answer was based on the Electoral Commission’s evaluations of the 2018 and 2019 voter ID pilots. However, in its most recent report, the commission said that it had no way of measuring the effect of voter ID on minority communities. It said:

“Polling station staff were not asked to collect demographic data about the people who did not come back, owing to the practical challenges involved in carrying out that data collection exercise”.

Let us take a look into the pilots more closely. Pilots for voter ID took place in just 10 local authority areas in England. In all elections that took place in 2019, there was one conviction and one police caution for using someone else’s vote at a polling station, but during the pilots, 2,000 people were turned away because they did not come to the polling station with ID. More than 750 of those did not return with ID to cast their vote. How can the Minister stand there and tell us that these measures will not make it harder for people to vote? Perhaps they are less keen on having the Government chosen by the voters than having the voters chosen by the Government.

I come on to the Government’s so-called “free elector IDs”. Not only are they unworkable, they are hugely expensive for already overstretched local authorities. Council leaders have warned the Government that voter ID risks damaging access to democracy and must be delayed. They say that there is simply not enough time to deal with all the risks that will be created by the new system. I wonder what the Minister has to say to the Conservative chair of the Local Government Association, James Jamieson, who said that voter ID must be delayed because:

“It is a fundamental part of the democratic process that elections can run smoothly and effectively where every citizen is able to exercise their right to vote.”

What does the Minister have to say to the leader of his party’s councillors?

The language and politics around voter ID used by this Government is frankly dangerous. Does the Minister not trust the voters of this country to continue to cast their ballots securely, as they have done for generations? Does he really believe that voting is not safe and secure in Britain? Ministers should be promoting confidence in our elections, not spreading baseless scare stories that threaten our democracy.

Finally, the Minister will be aware of an amendment tabled in the other place by my noble Friends on the Labour Front Bench to establish a Select Committee to conduct an assessment of the impact of the voter ID regulations on turnout in the local elections next May. If the Minister is so confident that the regulations will not create barriers to people voting, surely he cannot object to that pragmatic, common-sense proposal. Surely he has absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

I urge Members across the House, when they enter the voting Lobbies this evening, to think about our constituents who have the right to vote and may have done so for decades, but will be turned away for the first time in May. It is for that fundamental reason that these backward, unworkable and anti-democratic regulations must be stopped in their tracks.

December 13, 2022
Lee Rowley – 2022 Speech on Voter ID at Elections

The speech made by Lee Rowley, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in the House of Commons on 12 December 2022.

I beg to move,

That the draft Voter Identification Regulations 2022, which were laid before this House on 3 November, be approved.

This statutory instrument is a key part of how we implement the voter identification policy in the Elections Act 2022. This area was debated extensively during the passage of the Act earlier this year. Through this SI, we will be fulfilling a Government manifesto commitment to protect the integrity of our democracy by introducing identification to vote at polling stations. Gaps in our current legislation leave open the potential for someone to cast another vote at the polling station. Our priority is adopting legislation that ensures the public can have confidence in the integrity of our elections and certainty that their vote belongs to them, and them alone.

The introduction of a voter identification policy is the best solution to the problem. It has been long called for by the independent Electoral Commission, as well as by international organisations, such as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which regularly monitors and reports on our national polls.

Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)

The Minister mentions the Electoral Commission. It issued a press statement at the weekend that expressed continued concerns about the delays in the Government getting their act together on this policy. It said it was not now sure that all the considerations it wanted taken into account to ensure the policy works properly could fully be met. That was in the press release. That comes alongside the Local Government Association and other council leaders expressing real concerns about whether this matter could be implemented properly and fairly and give people full access to voting in the May local elections. Does the Minister not just want to stop and think for a minute about the timing of the implementation, if not the policy itself?

Lee Rowley

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. We absolutely are thinking about how best to implement this policy. In the period while I have been in post, I have already met the Electoral Commission to talk about it. I have spoken to the Association of Electoral Administrators about it, and today I have spoken to the LGA about it. There are a range of views, but we are confident and focused on ensuring that this policy is implemented properly. We will continue to be so. On the key point, the Electoral Commission has been clear since as early as 2014 that

“we should move to a system where voters are required to produce identification at polling stations.”

This SI sets out further detail on the new processes that will be put in place to help us to implement this policy in practice. First, it sets out the updated polling station conduct rules for a range of elections and referendums, and details exactly how photographic identification documents will be checked and how data will be recorded by polling station staff. Secondly, it sets out a series of updates to election forms. As Members would expect, a number of existing forms, such as poll cards, have been updated to inform electors of the new requirement to show identification and of the types of documents that will be accepted.

On top of those changes, there are also new forms, such as those for polling station staff, which we will use to record data that will help our planned reviews of the policy in the future. Lastly, the policy sets out the details of the new electoral identity documents that can be obtained if someone does not already have an accepted document: the voter authority certificate and the anonymous elector document. These forms of photographic identification will be available to voters free of charge and will ensure that everyone who is eligible to vote will continue to have the opportunity to do so.

Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

I might be one of the minority on the Opposition Benches who think that what the Government are bringing forward is the right thing. The proof of pudding is in how the voter ID system works in Northern Ireland. The system sets the example for all the UK, and I know the Minister has had many discussions with his officials in Northern Ireland to ensure that the system in Northern Ireland can work here. It reduces electoral fraud and increases fairness in the democratic system. The Minister has had discussions with Northern Ireland, and electoral ID is of some use to people in their daily life. Those are four things going for it; it seems to me to be the thing to vote for. I just cannot understand why anybody would not.

Lee Rowley

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for outlining the importance of these policy changes. I fear it may be the only thing we agree with coming from the Opposition Benches tonight, but he has made an important point and he speaks from experience and more than 15 years of knowledge about how these kinds of changes make a difference to the integrity of our voter process.

Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)

As someone who served on the Elections Public Bill Committee, I know that the regulations that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) referred to were actually brought in under a Labour Government. Might the Minister like to comment on that?

Lee Rowley

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I look forward to hearing Opposition Front Benchers’ comments in support of this statutory instrument, based on their previous support for strengthening the integrity of our democratic processes.

This SI also sets out the processes for how electors can apply for these documents, both online and via paper forms, and for how electoral registration officers can process, determine and issue the documents. Showing photo ID is a part of day-to-day life for people in all walks of life. It is a perfectly reasonable and proportionate way to confirm that a person is who they say they are when it comes to voting.

Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)

I reassure the Minister that surely the Opposition will support this statutory instrument, because only three weeks ago, my Labour opponent was selected and as part of the rules for the hustings, people had to bring voter ID.

Lee Rowley

My hon. Friend makes a significant intervention that highlights the importance of consistency, which I am sure will shortly be coming from those on the Opposition Front Bench. Showing photo ID is a part of day-to-day life already, and as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has already outlined, it has been a requirement to show photographic identification since 2003 in Northern Ireland.

We are all rightly proud of the long history of our democracy, but we should never take it for granted. An essential part of how we keep our system functioning is by keeping the right structures in place, through measures such as this SI, that stop our elections being undermined. This SI will strengthen the integrity of our elections, and I hope that Members will join me in supporting these measures.

December 13, 2022