My Lords, it is a pleasure to begin day two of the Elections Bill, and to move Amendment 20 and speak to Amendments 120 and 122 in this first group. I give more than a nod to Amendment 119, but I shall not trespass on it—I shall leave it to the noble Baroness when she rises to speak.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord True, the Minister, for the time he spent pre-Committee discussing some of the elements around accessibility. He has shown kindness and courtesy and given his time in all the meetings we have had to date. I am also grateful for all the briefing and support we have had, not least from the RNIB.
My three amendments address one simple issue: the accessibility, inclusivity, independence and secrecy of every vote cast. That is simple and straightforward and, I hope, achievable. I shall not give a Second Reading speech, but I shall just give two very brief examples of why I believe we need these amendments. The examples come from the testimony of blind people who, helpfully, got in contact with the RNIB. One person said that when they were voting, the booth was close to the queue and they had to say out loud to the person with them the candidate they wanted to vote for—and they heard from someone in the queue a loud sigh at their choice. Similarly, a second person said that they knew that the person helping them was of a different political persuasion. With the best will in the world, how could they know that that person had voted in the way they had asked them to? That is the purpose of the amendments. As we come to celebrate 150 years of the Ballot Act, the ability of all the electorate, not least blind and visually impaired people, to vote independently and in secret would seem to be something that all noble Lords would want to get behind.
3.45 pm
Amendment 20 concerns the role the Electoral Commission could play. It suggests that within three months of the passage of this legislation, the commission should produce a report on how it will seek to ensure the accessibility and inclusivity of the vote, how that would be audited and assured and, crucially, how examples of good practice could be measured right across the country. In saying that, I pay tribute to the many returning officers who do such good work and really try to do their best, not least in terms of accessibility and inclusion. The amendment also provides for what action the commission would take if such accessibility and inclusivity were not found to be in place.
Turning to Amendment 120, this is where we get to the meat of the change. Current legislation on accessibility is based on the Representation of the People Act 1983. There are three simple statements on the provision of
a large-print ballot paper and of a device as prescribed in secondary legislation called a tactile voting device, or TVD. It is simply a plastic grid that covers the ballot paper and allows the blind or partially sighted person to feel where the boxes are and to put their cross in the relevant box. Why do we need to change this system? First, although well intentioned, it has not worked. As noble Lords can imagine, the TVD going over the ballot paper still does not tell me what names are on it. I cannot vote secretly or independently with that system. Indeed, the High Court ruling in 2019 described it as a parody, as it has indeed been.
The relevant clause in the Bill deletes the word “device” and inserts
“such equipment as it is reasonable to provide”.
It also deletes the phrase “without assistance”. In essence, although this is well intentioned, it doubly weakens the current provision. I am making no great claims for the current provision: we have to look at how we can drive change and, potentially, innovation in this space in order to make the vote inclusive and accessible. However, we must not move from the TVD system to one that could provide even less accessibility. As noble Lords can see, the inclusion of the word “reasonable” could make people subject to a postcode lottery, or to a returning officer lottery in respect of what that officer might consider reasonable.
My Amendment 120 uses the wording of the Representation of the People Act 1983, but simply replaces the phrase “a device” with “equipment”. It is a simple amendment but one that will enable innovation and change, so that we are not trapped with the TVD and unable to use modern technology to assist with the vote. Just changing those words enables innovation, without watering down the current accessibility and inclusivity provisions.
Amendment 122 is aligned with Amendment 120, in that it seeks to push innovation and emphasises what technology can do to assist, support, enable and—yes—empower the elector when they cast their vote. At no stage would I suggest that innovation is the complete solution, or indeed the—or even a—silver bullet, but we should at least consider how it can contribute to that solution through enabling greater accessibility and inclusivity.
Amendment 122 asks the department to put out an innovation competition, to get all the fabulous UK SMEs in the technology sector involved and come up with potential solutions to be trialled and set out and which could be proof of concept. This would drive inclusion and accessibility and throw a specific focus on the current difficulty and lack of inclusion and accessibility around the vote. More broadly, doing it in this innovative way would, I hope, raise a wider point across society around the whole question of how we can make not just the public sector and public services but the whole social, economic and human experience more accessible and inclusive.
There are three amendments and one clear purpose: inclusion, accessibility, independence and secrecy. In a 21st-century United Kingdom of liberal, democratic politics, surely it must be possible for everyone to have the opportunity and be empowered to cast their vote accessibly, inclusively, independently and in secret. This must be possible. I beg to move.