I absolutely agree. In my own borough, a senior Labour councillor who was a member of council cabinet at the time accepted a caution for voting twice—he was able to do so. We hear this repeated refrain from Labour Members that this is a rare instance and that it hardly ever happens, but I shall pose the same questions that I posed in Committee: what is an acceptable level of fraud? How many votes is it okay for somebody to steal? Surely one instance of fraud is too many.
There is something quite telling and quite worrying about just how strenuously some Members oppose the Bill. We are not asking people to go to any great lengths or take on huge expense. ID will be freely available to people with one of the many qualifying documents. I looked in my wallet before I took my place in the Chamber. I have at least two permissible forms that I habitually carry with me, as do the vast majority of people. It is already the case that most people take their polling card to the polling booth, because they think they have to give it to the teller to prove who they are.
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We should be keen to show the world how secure our democracy is and, as part of that, how all our citizens are able to participate, which is why I also strongly support removing the prohibition on overseas voters who have lived outside the UK for more than 15 years. The rights and responsibilities of British citizenship should not be arbitrarily time limited based on a person’s address. By passing the Bill, we are bringing our elections in line with those in countries such as France and Canada, which we would want to be compared with as modern, mature democracies.
I am proud of the work that we have done as a Government to ensure the legitimacy and integrity of our elections process, and I look forward to voting for the Bill later this evening.