My Lords, I rise to speak to these amendments and throw the Greens’ considerable weight behind the noble Lord, Lord Woolley. It is slightly scary speaking after him and the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, because they tend to carry the House, whereas I am not sure that I do.
Some people have described voter ID as a solution in search of a problem. Actually, I think that gives the Government far too much credit, because this is a cynical ploy. It is a clear attempt by the Government to make it harder for people to vote in elections. That is the only motive I can see when we have this sort of Bill in front of us. More cynically still, it will disproportionately stop BAME, working-class, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people voting. These people find it hard enough to vote already. Anything you put in their way will stop them voting completely; that is preventing democracy.
The Government are spreading fake news about there being massive election fraud in this country. I hope we can get these figures out there, because that is a nonsense. I do not understand why the Government persist in this fake news.
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Of course, the real interference in our democracy comes from the top. We all know that the problem is billionaire donors and lobbyists bankrolling the Tory party. That is where a failure of democracy is happening. I hope that the next Government is a Labour Government —with Green support, obviously—and that they start unravelling some of the mess this Government have created for the country. I want a ministerial position—I just point that out. Treasury, please.
We do not even know how far Russian interference in our election goes. Why not try sorting that out before we sort out this non-existent problem of voter fraud? We have to stop the Government’s interference with democracy, today and on subsequent days.