Contributions
808 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)The hon. Gentleman is making my point for me. He did not recommend ID cards. He did not. If he mentioned taking a utility bill, he is not talking about registering for and…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)Nobody on this side of the room is saying that electoral fraud should not be punished. It absolutely should be punished. It should not be tolerated and should never be tolerated.…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)Absolutely not. The idea that I would take any political lead from an unelected baroness is utter nonsense. I simply used her as an illustration of the deep divisions in the…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)I will in a moment. There is nothing perfect. There is no way on earth that we can stop every sort of crime, but this Government and this Committee should concentrate on…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)I will in a moment. Ailsa Irvine, of the Electoral Commission, admitted that “we are starting from a high base of public confidence.” –– [ Official Report, Elections Public Bill…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)I absolutely will. My position is that there is no evidence whatsoever. Policy must be made on the basis of evidence. We have a limited time in this House in which to act and…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, if a Government ignore the problem in front of their nose and then run about trying to find evidence of a problem when there is no…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)Again, it came out from the evidence session that postal vote fraud is the major issue and that is what is concerning the vast majority—if not all—of our witnesses.22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)Again, I will not use the language that the hon. Member for Peterborough used, but read the evidence. Gillian Beasley said that “we have seen less personation”—[ Official Report ,…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)I assure the hon. Gentleman that I was not asleep; perhaps he should temper his language somewhat. I suggest he reads Councillor Golds’s evidence, which I will come to in a…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)None of them has been overturned.22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)I have been trying, both on Second Reading and in Committee, to tease out where the Northern Ireland comparison comes from and how the Government believe that the situation we…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)Further to that point of order, Sir Edward. I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood. It is outrageous that the Government should seek to parachute in…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)The right hon. Gentleman seems to be saying that currently there is no law to stop electoral crime. Laws to stop electoral crime are in place at the moment and they seem to be…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Fifth sitting)I always suspected throughout the passage of the Bill, whether on Second Reading or in our evidence sessions, that there was absolutely no evidence that voter ID cards would…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Sixth sitting)My question is on the specifics. We have been talking about a card that is accepted by the Scottish Government and, indeed, by Police Scotland. Why specifically is the Scottish…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Sixth sitting)The answer would be that we wait as long as we need to get the right result.22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Sixth sitting)On the length of time, so much of what we heard on Second Reading and today was about the integrity of the ballot and about ensuring that every vote counts and that no vote is…22 Sept 2021HANSARDElections Bill (Sixth sitting)rose—22 Sept 2021HANSARD Elections Bill (Instruction)I thank the Minister and welcome him to his place, temporarily or otherwise. I was incredibly surprised by the length of the introduction he gave on this important change to this…20 Sept 2021