I want to take a few seconds to place on record my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) on her excellent maiden speech. I am sure it is a matter of easy consensus in the House that Lib Dem maiden speeches are all too rare these days, and I thought my hon. Friend’s speech was exceptionally fine. As a former Chief Whip for my party, I was delighted to hear her declare her intention to prosecute her constituents’ case with an independence of mind to match that of the late Cheryl Gillan.
“If I am ever asked, on the streets of London, or in any other venue, public or private, to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am…then I will take that card out of my wallet and physically eat it in the presence of whatever emanation of the state has demanded that I produce it.”
Those are not my words, but the words of the Prime Minister. I think we should watch the Division lists this evening with some interest. I have no doubt that he will perform that feat of gastronomic improbability while lying in front of a bulldozer to stop the creation of a third runway at Heathrow.
The difficulty that the Government face in introducing the Bill is that their proposals for voter identification seek to produce a solution for which there is no obvious problem. That is not to say that voter personation does not happen. We have heard instances of it described today, and indeed we knew for many years that it was a substantial and real problem in Northern Ireland. That is why, having identified the problem, it was right for the then Government to act to end it. But to justify the measures in this Bill, the Government should first have provided evidence to show there is a problem, and they have singularly failed to do so.
The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) said the Bill would have benefited from prelegislative scrutiny, and he is absolutely right. The cost-benefit analysis is to be seen in the pilot that the Government carried out in 2019 when, of the 2,000 people who were turned away from polling stations, 700 did not return, which should give us serious pause before we go down this road.
If the Treasury Bench, having missed the opportunity for prelegislative scrutiny, are able to get this Bill, in its current form, through both Houses—I anticipate that will be a bigger ask in the other place—they should undertake a programme of post-legislative scrutiny to ensure that the promises they make tonight are honoured in the execution.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) told me that she appears on the electoral register as Christine Jardine, but her passport shows her married name. That is by no means unusual, as in Scotland one’s name is the name by which one chooses to be known. That sort of thing could have been teased out by prelegislative scrutiny, but it is now too late.
There are many other issues about which I am concerned but, unfortunately, time is against me. I will vote against the Bill tonight.
6.2 pm