To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of voter ID rules on people’s ability to vote, and what plans they have to review these rules before the next general election.
My Lords, we are encouraged by the first rollout of voter identification and are confident that the vast majority of voters will have cast their vote successfully based on sector feedback and our own observations on the day. As set out in legislation, we will be conducting an evaluation of the implementation of voter identification at the May polls and intend to publish the report no later than November this year.
I am quite surprised at that Answer, because initial reports suggest that thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people were not able to cast their votes. Of course, the really disturbing thing is that a former member of the Government—still a Member of the other place, recently knighted, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg—said at the National Conservatism Conference in Westminster last Monday:
“Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them, as dare I say we found by insisting on voter ID for elections”.
So a member of the Minister’s own party has called it “gerrymandering”.
The successful introduction of voter identification at May’s elections was to ensure the future integrity of our voting system. Comments from elsewhere do not reflect the reality of the reason for or the administration of that change. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government and Building Safety, Lee Rowley MP, made the Government’s position absolutely clear in a letter responding to a point of order raised in the House of Commons on 16 May. This letter has been deposited in the House of Commons Library.
My Lords, several years ago I was concerned in a case involving allegedly forged postal votes. In the course of that time it became clear to me that many heads of family in some communities were providing postal votes that were, in my eyes, highly questionable. I very much hope that the Government are still keeping the matter under review.
I assure my noble friend that voter identification is just one of a series of measures within the Elections Act that are aimed at tackling voter fraud and ensuring the future security of our electoral system. Further changes will be delivered later this year to introduce sensible safeguards against the abuse of absent voting, clamping down on the practice of postal vote harvesting and tightening the rules around postal and proxy votes.
My Lords, according to the Electoral Commission, 1.2% of people who attended a polling station at this year’s local elections were turned away because they lacked photo ID. We are not talking about ID but photographic ID; that is the concern. If the next general election reflects the turnout of 2019, this could mean that 380,000 voters are sent home and prevented from exercising their right. On this basis, can the Minister really say that these photographic voter ID requirements, as they stand, are fit to be applied at the next general election?
As I have said, we are undertaking a review. It is essential that, before we make claims such as we are hearing from the other side, we understand how the policy has operated in practice, what has gone wrong and where there are any areas for improvement in the future. Of course, where there are lessons to be learned, we will do so and we will change at the point of that evaluation. We are already gathering evidence as a Government. Also, the Electoral Commission is conducting extensive evaluation; we expect its initial findings later this month and a full report in September. I suggest that the whole House waits until we get that full evaluation before we start throwing stones.
My Lords, we already have a problem with fewer young people turning out to vote than others. The clear implication of what Jacob Rees-Mogg said was that this was intended to discourage more young people from voting, but it ended up discouraging some older people from voting as well. Would not one of the easiest things be to expand the number of possible means of identification that young people could present when voting, and make it clear that that is being relaxed?
We will look at the evidence of that. We have said we that we will look at other forms of identification when we have the evidence to do so; that is what the Government will do.
Do the Government have any intention of specifying what sort of ID is acceptable? I decided to test this out in the recent local elections. I took my House of Lords pass; it has a photograph, as we all know, but it was not acceptable. Luckily, in my pocket I also had a passport, so I was able to vote. This should not be left unclear.
The returning officers have a clear list of acceptable forms of photo identification that they use. They have been fully trained on those. As I have said, we will look at other methods of photo ID and get the evidence to say when something is particularly useful. ID is changing all the time, but we have to ensure that it is secure ID that is being used in a polling station.