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12,832 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
The Minister refers to crypto’s anonymity of source. Does she not agree that it is difficult to know what the attraction of crypto is, other than the fact it allows someone to hide where the money comes from? Why not just be straightforward and simply ban its use? Not a temporary ban or a moratorium—just ban it. Why cannot people simply give old-fashioned cash to support political parties?
The allegations that the hon. Lady makes are extremely serious, and should be based on robust evidence. To be told that “volunteers had reported” is not sufficient, and she must understand the implications of what she is saying, in terms of social coherence and undermining the very status of our democracy. I ask her to be a little more cautious, and to proceed on the basis of evidence.
I applaud the Government’s ambitions in this Bill and the fact that they want to fix politics and for it to be fair and free from foreign interference. There is much to be enthusiastic about in the Bill, although in the five minutes I have been given to speak, I cannot go through it all. This might be the only such legislation that we have before the next general election, and I believe that it is incumbent upon us to prepare ourselves and our constitution for the possibility, God forbid, that a populist party might take control of our country. We are allowing ourselves to be wide open to all kinds of things. The Foreign Affairs Committee did a report into foreign influence across Europe, and we saw a number of shocking things. I recommend the report to Members, if they are in any doubt about the ways in which malign actors, either state or non-state, are trying to influence and undermine democracies across Europe, but if we think that we are free of that because we are on the other side of the channel, we have got another think coming. We are so complacent about the things that can happen, that have happened and that might happen to our country next. We must protect ourselves. We must take this seriously. There is not enough in this Bill to protect us. We must go further. I do not understand why we do not. For example, when it comes to disinformation from other countries trying to influence our democracy, how many Ministers do we have who are responsible for disinformation? We have seven. If we have seven Ministers for disinformation, we have no Minister for disinformation, but disinformation is undermining our democracy right now, and it will get worse coming up to the next general election. There is not enough in the Bill to be able to deal with that. I ought to speak to my new clauses, including new clause 85, which are supported by the TUC and have been welcomed by Transparency International. I am proposing a complete ban on overseas voters donating to political parties. Why not? I do not understand why not. Rycroft says that foreign money is more difficult to trace and more difficult to ensure that it is clean. That is why he puts a £100,000 cap on it. Well, why do we not go further? We are the politicians. Why do we not just ban it? People can come to this country, live here, pay their taxes and get involved in our democracy. Then they can make donations. If they live somewhere else in a tax haven—tough, they cannot.
Yes, I am. I am not getting into all the arguments about whether people who live abroad should have a vote—
No, I have only got two minutes. Come on! People should just pay their taxes and get involved. New clause 86 proposes that a donor would have to be a total citizen. It is not enough to come back to Britain and go, “Oh well, I’m here now. I’m going to pay a little bit of tax because there are various tax dodges and I can do that.” No, they have to be here paying their full whack of taxes, and then they can make donations to political parties. If they care so much about Britain and about democracy, they should come here and be a full citizen, in my opinion. My new clause 84 relates to descriptions on ballot papers. At the moment, instead of having just “the Labour party” on the ballot paper, it is possible to have “the Labour party, the party of equality and fairness”—fair enough. However, at the last local elections, the Greens registered candidates with the Electoral Commission as “first choice candidate” or “lead candidate”, so that, in an election with three votes, there was an instruction on the ballot paper as to who someone should vote for. That is an abuse, and it should be stopped. That is what that new clause is about. New clause 87 is about ballot papers always being in alphabetical order. I speak as a T. My constituents had to look very hard to find me, and fortunately they did, but when we vote in alphabetical order, the Ts are at the far end—and there were hardly any of us. It is definitely an advantage to be at the beginning of the alphabet. Why do we not have the Australian system, and just randomise it? There is so much more that we could do. Although there are rumours that a group may discuss how much more we can do, will there really be enough legislative time to bring forward another Bill that will deal with the many problems we have? My predecessor, 180 years ago, was the MP for Finsbury, Thomas Slingsby Duncombe. He brought in the massive Chartist petition—3.3 million people wanting to be allowed to vote. So many people had signed it that they had to take the doors off the Chamber to get all the bits of paper through. Presumably it did not go into the Bag behind the Chair, but there was that much enthusiasm—that was what democracy was about. I do not want to be an MP for Finsbury who sits back complacently and allows our democracy to be undermined. We have to fight back.
In the five minutes you have allotted me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will try to speak to my clauses 41 to 47 in my name, new clauses 82 and 83, which are now in my name—I put them in my name on behalf of the Education Secretary—and amendment 4, which I put in my name on behalf of the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White). I thank the previous Ministers, my hon. Friends the Members for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali) and for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), for their constant engagement with me on this matter over the past year and a bit, and I also thank the Minister with responsibility for online safety. I welcome the new Minister to her place—she is a fantastic appointment. I thank the Electoral Commission, Philip Rycroft, members of the Online Safety Network in particular, Demos, Adobe, British broadcasters and colleagues from across this House for working with me to table these crucial amendments. Our democracy is under attack by foreign actors who want to destabilise our country, and individuals in our country who want to create chaos and division. They use the online space to create and spread disinformation, create deepfakes, and use algorithms to amplify bots pretending to be British citizens. These distort the debate, negate the facts, and take away our right to free choice in a free election. AI-generated material can be fun—for example, images of cats riding on dolphins—but it can also be destructive. A network of 73 TikTok accounts that pretend to be authentic news organisations suddenly sprang up in March 2025; they have nearly one million followers and have published thousands of deepfakes of Government Ministers supposedly announcing controversial policies. They use real BBC footage. In the first week of December 2025 alone, they had nearly one million viewers. That translates to the doorstep. I spoke to a voter in December 2025 who was convinced that the then Prime Minister was imposing a Christmas tax because she saw a video of him announcing it. Those accounts have made us less sure of who and what we can trust. When that happens, people still vote and make a choice, but the ground beneath their judgment shifts. New clause 47 would ensure that all material that is AI-generated is clearly labelled. It does not stop any party or candidate from creating crowds at their speeches or wearing a superhero outfit to leap over the Elizabeth Tower, but it would bring transparency to the public. As has often been said, democracy does not require us to agree, but it does require us to live in the same reality, so new clause 82 would create a liability for false statements, and new clause 41 would ensure that the law offline is applied online—mainly sections 106 and 114A from the Representation of the People Act 1983. These need to be made priority offences under the Online Safety Act 2023. I thank the Minister for online safety for his engagement; it allows us to work together to ensure that this happens and that Ofcom understands the importance of protecting democracy. The algorithms are powerful because they do not look dramatic. They look ordinary; it is just content in our feed. No single message changes our mind; scale, volume, emotion and the cumulative effect do. Online social media bosses can use their control of algorithms to promote their political views without reporting to the public. That is why I tabled new clause 42. I will skip new clause 44, on the Electoral Commission. I want to raise new clause 43, which would require a repository for political advertising, so that any voter can see what a party is advertising in different parts of the country and on different platforms. It would also ensure that all political advertising and the money spent on it can be audited and properly declared. Everyone in this House knows that this harmful activity is not limited to election periods, but is happening all the time, spreading disinformation or nudifying and humiliating female candidates and politicians. New clauses 46 and 83, which look to introduce the broadcast code to online platforms, would deal with this matter. Finally, we need an emergency election protocol that is appropriate, transparent and holds public confidence. That is what new clause 45 is about. None of my amendments has been selected for decision, so they will be relaid in the Lords. I thank the Minister for Online Safety, No. 10 and the Secretary of State for their engagement. Working together, I am sure that we can find a way to protect our democracy.
My hon. Friend is making fantastic progress on protecting our democracy. On criminal convictions, as she will know, I have taken over amendment 4 from my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White). It is about listing on registers of interests, once a candidate is elected as an MP or councillor, that they have undergone a Disclosure and Barring Service check. That would provide schools, care homes and women’s shelters with the clarity that they can feel safe with that person. Will the Minister consider that, as part of ensuring transparency, so that people can understand who it is, and is not, appropriate to invite to particular venues?
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. I can see that she is clearly opposed to this measure. I remind her that about nine years ago she and I debated at Wilmslow high school. I remember she made a clear commitment then to the students that she would support giving them the vote at 16.
I congratulate the new Minister, and welcome her to her place. It was, I think, a long overdue promotion. It was a privilege to serve on the Bill Committee; it was my first time. I enjoyed the Committee, and I enjoyed the spirit in which we conducted our debates. There were many occasions when I thought that amendments proposed by Opposition parties were sincere and tabled with good intentions, and on more than one occasion the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), had to take me aside and explain to me patiently why the Government’s position was that we could not do something that seemed to me to be a reasonable request. Some complex issues have arisen today as well. I listened with interest to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who suggested that there might be a need for a second phase, and to many other contributions from Members who are more expert than me in in various fields. There has been a real sense of concern about the point that we have reached as a democracy. I wanted to take a couple of minutes to continue my debate with the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey). She is no longer in the Chamber, but I should like to respond to some of her comments about her amendments. Broadly speaking, she seems to be of the opinion that contributing a single vote towards the election of a representative for a four-to-five-year period should be done at exactly the same age at which people choose who should be their marriage partner till death them do part. Let me explain why I do not think that is correct. We can play a quick game of “higher or lower”. The compulsory school age is five. The age of criminal responsibility is 10. At 12, you can be trained to take part in dangerous performances. You can be kept in police detention if arrested, and you have to sign your own passport application. At 14, you can get a Saturday job. At 15, you can apply to join the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force. At 16, you can buy spray aerosols, enter a pub on your own, drink beer or wine with a meal, join the armed forces, change your name by deed poll without parental consent, hold a licence to drive a moped, or gamble by buying a lottery ticket. You can enter a housing contract. You can leave home. You can apply for legal aid, and be assessed on your own means. You can consent to surgical or dental treatment. You can buy premium bonds. You can become a pet owner, you can consent to sexual activity, and you can obtain your national insurance number. You have to be 17, however, to donate blood. At 18 you can be deployed in the armed forces, you can act as the executor of a will, you can buy fireworks and explosives and you can buy firearms, but you have to be 21 to adopt, or to supervise a learner driver. The point I am making is that the transition from childhood to adulthood is not like flicking a switch; it is a process. The question that we are really debating is: at what point within that process should we trust somebody to take their first step as a democratic citizen by thinking deeply and contributing one of many thousands of votes in an election for who represents them? Speaking as someone who has raised three children to the age of 16, but also as someone whose career has involved working with children and youth, I believe that 16 is the right age for a number of reasons. In particular, the evidence is strong that getting young people engaged in the democratic process at that age means that it sticks with them throughout the rest of their lives, but there is another reason too. We have heard talk of this being vote rigging. I have to wonder what it is about so many Conservative Members that makes them automatically assume that a 16-year-old will not vote for them. Every party in this place has an equal opportunity to appeal to that young person for their vote, but when they do not have a vote, they can be ignored. We only have to look at the Conservatives’ record—cutting child trust funds, closing down Sure Start centres, cutting primary school budgets, cutting the educational maintenance allowance, cutting school transport, closing careers services, closing youth centres, tripling tuition fees, locking people out of the housing market, and not doing enough on climate change—to see why it is important that we give that generation a say in their future. The right hon. Member for Tatton made that commitment at Wilmslow high school nine years ago, and I am disappointed that she has rowed back on it today. I strongly endorse the comments by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington). We need to look at the issue of deepfakes and protect our democracy, because we are all subject to it.
Order. I remind Members that they need to stand if they would like to participate in the debate. I will impose a hard three-minute time limit. Please be mindful of your comrades if you take interventions.
Order. To try to fit everybody in, we are going to have to drop the time limit to two and a half minutes. I call Clive Jones.
I will call Michelle Welsh to move the motion; I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other hon. Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.
I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, because at the end of the day, nothing matters more than protecting our democracy. It is the bedrock of our society, and we have got to defend it at all costs. In that spirit, I am delighted to welcome the new Minister to her place. I know she will do a fantastic job. We need to show that intimidation has no part to play in our public life. This Bill makes provision to ensure that we give protection not only to candidates, campaigners and elected office holders, but to electoral staff. I am sure that many of us in this place can point to times when we have been intimidated while out campaigning. Civil and robust debate is important, but it is very different from intimidatory behaviour. We require changes to keep pace with the changing world we live in and the increasingly digital life that we experience, so I note new clauses 41 to 47, proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), to prevent online harms. Online harassment or worse is growing exponentially year on year. AI-generated images, deepfakes, disinformation and misinformation being circulated on social media and other forms of online harassment are simply unacceptable. That must be addressed as a matter of urgency for the preservation of Members in this Chamber, particularly women, who suffer even higher levels of abuse. The spirit of those new clauses is spot on, and I am pleased that the Government are taking these issues seriously through the Online Safety Act 2023 and through the defending democracy taskforce. I am also pleased to see the Government establishing an AI-labelling taskforce, and as the Bill passes through the other place, I hope that the Government will continue their work to further tighten up measures in this area. For very preservation of public life itself, proposals to mitigate those risks, both online and offline, are absolutely key. We know that only too well in Southend West and Leigh, and our thoughts remain with the families of Sir David Amess, Jo Cox and Ann Widdecombe. Cleaning up political donations is also vital. One critically important clean-up—we have heard about it today—is of cryptocurrency. I have spoken in this House many times about my interest in financial regulation, and I harbour concerns about the crypto world as it stands today. Rules around the sector need to be watertight before it can be safe to allow contributions to political parties from cryptoassets. Crypto, in my view, has a place in the future of the UK financial system, and there are many in the UK industry who are working hard for tighter, more appropriate regulation to get that moving, but for now, the anonymity in the political donations world is simply not acceptable, as it creates the risk of a significant reduction in transparency. I believe the measures in the Bill to ensure the reliability of such donations are of paramount importance to safeguarding our democracy. To conclude, I want to confirm that, unlike others, I support bringing forward rules that update measures that give 16-year-olds the opportunity to vote. After all, 16-year-olds can join the armed forces, and they have to pay taxes if they are working. Ultimately, they are the ones who will be most exposed for the longest period to good or bad decisions made by future Governments. We must start crediting our young people with the ability to make up their minds. I have met some incredible young people through work experience in my office, and through my youth days and visits to schools. At my last youth day, 70 pupils—the clear majority, with only two against—were in favour of votes for 16-year-olds. Even the teachers, the people who know the children best, were overwhelmingly positive about the move. The Bill will take us forward into a new age in which young people can have a proper say on their future. Democracy has endured because of its ability to accommodate change, and we are now in a rapidly changing world. The changes we need to make to protect our democracy for years to come are vital.
I welcome my right hon. Friend to her place and thank her for her earlier comments about the wildfires this summer. Staffordshire fire and rescue service saw more than 600 outdoor fires in July alone. That does not include any of those that happened in August. It is important that, in this place, we recognise the bravery of those firefighters who were out there day in, day out. Every human instinct, on looking at the wall of flame they were faced with, tells us to run the other way, but those men and women went out there day after day, ran towards danger and kept our communities safe. I thank them. Will the First Secretary of State ensure that the voice of firefighters is at the heart of preparing for the changing climate and that they get what they need to protect our communities? I make particular reference to retained firefighters. I am aware of retained firefighters in Staffs who did an eight or 10-hour shift fighting wildfires, went home, got in the shower and went to their day job. They are absolute heroes and deserve all our respect. If we can make sure that their voices are at the heart of the response, that would be a very good thing.
I congratulate the new Minister and wish her well in her role. I share the confidence of the House, as has been expressed, from her excellent role as the Chair of the Select Committee, and I know that she will do her best in this role, too. This Bill and the amendments we are discussing matter because they go to the heart of what all of us hear on the doorstep, which is that people simply do not trust in politics or in many of the people in it any more. Trust and turnout are regrettably at record lows. That is not an abstract complaint or something where it would be nicer if we had a bit more of it; it is corrosive to democracy itself, so this Bill is a significant and welcome step forward, to do things such as give young people a voice, iron out some of the inconsistencies in voter registration, and crack down on the money and abuse that too often poison our elections. Taken together, a number of the amendments before us are a genuine opportunity to further rebuild that trust by making our voting system fairer, getting big money and dodgy money out of politics, and ensuring that everyone can safely, confidently, independently, secretly and, one day—who knows?—enthusiastically be able to cast their vote. I want to make the broader point that I acknowledge and accept that there is a new clause that cannot be named which is no longer in scope, but I wish to express my regret that it is not. This Bill is an opportunity to go as far as possible in restoring trust. Many of us believe that that is now missing.
My point is that in addressing amendments 69,70, 80, 120, 72 and 48, as I intend to, there is a context. Many of us believe that the world of two-party politics no longer exists, and we need a political system that supports what every other amendment and every other part of the Bill seeks to do.
Bearing in mind your family connection to the fire services in Harlow, Madam Deputy Speaker, I pay tribute to fire officers across my constituency. I also welcome the First Secretary to her place; I know that she is a friend of Harlow. I thank the Government for their investment in our town, not just through the UK Health Security Agency, but through funding for rough sleeping and the 48 businesses that will benefit from the defence investment plan. On rewiring the state, I think previous Governments have seen working with the charity and voluntary sector as a cheaper option, yet volunteers and community services have expertise that we can utilise. We need to think about how they are funded properly and supported in the long term.
The shadow Minister will be pleased to know that I agree with her on this point. I proudly represent my constituency of Harlow, and it is really important that I have that local accountability; that means a great deal to me. Does she agree that we need to take foreign interference in our electoral system really seriously? It is important that the be Bill be—as I believe it is—really solid, detailed and willing to make changes, because we recognise that malign influencers will do anything they can to weave their way into our political system.
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, which enables me to welcome my two work experience students, Maja and Stacey, to the Gallery. I am sure they are enjoying his speech.
10. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to strengthen Wales’s place in the Union.
The Prime Minister has spoken about practical Government interventions that can make everyday life a little bit easier. One of the great advantages of devolution is that different parts of the UK can try different approaches to common challenges. My experience in Scotland is that the SNP often turns differences in public policy into arguments about the constitution, when people really want Government focused on making their lives better now. Does the Secretary of State agree that we should look for things that unite us and share what works, so that good ideas from across Scotland, England and Northern Ireland benefit Wales, and vice versa?
It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I will try to keep my questions brief. I want to be clear from the outset: I am not here to oppose the principle of the regulations—indeed, I agree with the Minister that they must work for the sake of nature restoration. However, some serious concerns have been raised with me about how they are drafted, perhaps because they have not gone through a formal consultation process. I will focus on one key point. As I understand it, there is no third-party oversight to ensure that the levy is calculated at the right amount to secure the objectives of the environmental delivery plans, although I understand that there is third-party oversight within comparable regulations for the community infrastructure levy. That matters because I understand that a key element of the primary legislation is that the overall improvement test should be based on whether the EDP, if delivered in full, would secure an overall improvement in the environmental feature in question. Although the EDP might be sound, if the nature restoration fund levy amount is not set at an appropriate level there is a risk that the overall improvement test could be null and void because there would not be the right amount of funding. I also understand that the regulations allow the Secretary of State to change the levy rate at any time without notice. That presumably creates considerable jeopardy for developers who do not have a legal route to exit once they have committed. It would also seem to create an avenue for a lot of political pressure to be brought to bear to reduce the amount of the levy—possibly to improve the viability of certain development schemes. I would welcome the Minister’s response to those concerns and encourage him to consider how they might be addressed before the regulations come into effect.
A political system, even one with regular elections, is not really a democracy if rich individuals and corporations are able to use their wealth to buy access and influence, and shape decisions in a way that ordinary citizens will never enjoy. That is what new clause 25, tabled in my name, seeks to address. The British people will never be able to trust the fact that we are genuinely representing their interests if those with deep pockets can wield disproportionate political power. Unless we use this Bill to drain the influence of money from our politics, that doubt will continue to rot away at the foundations of our democracy, driving more and more of our constituents to disbelieve that Parliament is here to serve them, and meaningful engagement with politics in our country will continue to sink to ever more dismal depths, until no Government have the mandate to legitimately call themselves representative. The amendment in my name focuses on a specific aspect of this problem that is particularly pernicious and should be banned in its own right: developers donating to political parties to weight the planning system in their own favour. What gets built and where shapes our daily lives like nothing else, and the decisions made through our planning system are often the most tangible touchpoints with democracy for local communities. Yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke about the urgent need to put agency and power back in the hands of the people, but in recent years the near universal experience of those engaging with the planning system as ordinary citizens is that their hopes and concerns are dismissed and trampled on by decision making that overwhelmingly favours the interests of speculative developers. This is not an accident. Developers are among the biggest donors to political parties, and the successive waves of planning deregulation that have served to silence and curtail community participation in planning decisions have allowed these businesses to make vast sums of money throwing up expensive housing that most young families could never hope to afford, while providing as few amenities as they can get away with and destroying our countryside in their pursuit of profit. Our constituents are not daft. They can see the depressing results of the triumph of speculative developers’ interests all around them, and they can also see those same developers and their lobbyists donating huge sums to political parties. The public can read the reports of exclusive fundraising events and access for those able to pay thousands for dinners with Ministers, and they can put two and two together.
As we have heard many times in today’s debate, there is a vast difference between trade unions—which are made up of millions of members making small contributions that are collectively donated to the Labour party, which they support—and corporations and rich individuals seeking influence and to further their own vested interests. To continue where I left off, what confidence can the British people have that the houses that will be built in their area will meet the actual needs of local families and enhance the beauty of their communities, when the developers throwing up sprawling, characterless, rip-off estates across the country are able to buy seats for a quiet chat with Ministers, during which they can lobby them? It is time to ban developers from donating to political parties, to wash away the stain of undue influence, and to deliver a housing and planning system that puts people before profit.
I want to ask about devolution and transport. Since we introduced Transport and Works Act orders in the 1990s, we have dramatically decreased the number of new tramlines, which we know are a big driver of local growth, being built in the UK. France has a mass rapid transit system in every town and city with a population of over 150,000 people, yet Leeds is the biggest place in western Europe without any mass rapid transit system at all. Will the First Secretary please tell us what powers she will push downwards to combined authorities to allow them to build new tramlines, and how she will make that a success?
In line with that, is the right hon. Lady calling for the age at which one can get a job to be raised from 14 to 18, ruling out 16 to 18-year-olds from being able to work? Is she calling for the age at which one can learn to drive to be raised from 17 to 18? To follow her argument, it would be inconsistent not to support those things.
Before I turn to the substance of the Bill, may I take a moment to put on record how much I enjoyed serving on the Select Committee under the chairship of my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi)? I am proud of the work we did together, including on tackling rough sleeping and confronting Britain’s housing crisis. I know she will take that into government as she takes on her new role. New clause 56, standing in my name, concerns the implementation of automatic voter registration. It is hopefully slightly less controversial than some of the other topics we have covered today, and I hope the Minister will support it, given that the new clause stood in her name until just a few weeks ago. Fundamentally, if we want high participation in our elections, we should make it as frictionless and easy as possible for eligible citizens to take part. We know that participation is too low. Turnout at the 2024 general election was a little under 60%, which was the lowest figure since 2001. However, that does not tell us the whole story, because the published turnout figure is the percentage of registered voters who go out to vote in the election. It excludes the estimated 8 million people, according to the Electoral Commission, who are eligible to vote but do not do so, because they are not on the electoral register. That could be because they are registered incorrectly, they have moved home or they did not get around to registering. Meanwhile, research from the University of Manchester showed us that we make it harder to register to vote here in the UK than almost any other democracy. This problem is not evenly distributed across our constituencies or across demographics. Young people, private renters, disabled people and those who are more transient are all less likely to be registered to vote. For too long, we have operated a slightly absurd system whereby the British state can know where you live, your age, your demographics and whether you are eligible to vote, and yet you still have to fill out a separate form to be registered to vote. The Bill creates a new process through which electoral registration officers can register eligible voters without requiring them to make that separate application once the necessary commitments are met. It allows existing registrations to be updated without requiring somebody to submit a fresh application, and it creates a data sharing and piloting framework needed to move towards a genuinely modern system of electoral registration. These are all brilliant things that really move automatic voter registration in the right direction. The purpose of new clause 56 is simply to ensure that we now turn that legislative framework into a reality. At the moment, the Bill gives us the architecture for automatic registration. What it does not yet give us is a clear public timetable for when the different parts of that architecture will actually be implemented. It would be good to hear from the Minister something on that timetable in her closing remarks today. We should have a clear pathway to delivering substantial change during this Parliament, which the Electoral Commission says is possible. New clause 56 asks for just that. Within two months of the new clause coming into force, the Government would have to publish a plan setting out the steps needed to implement registration without an application, the dates by which those steps would be completed, when they expect regulations for the registration pilots to be laid before Parliament, and how many additional people they expect to be registered by 15 August 2029 as a result of implementing part 2. I will just make one very quick point on the pilots. I mentioned it on Second Reading and I still think we need a response. The fear about piloting automatic voter registration projects is that if they are done on local authority boundaries, as they would be, because local authorities are responsible for voter registration, there might be constituencies—Vauxhall and Camberwell Green is a perfect example, given that it is in both Lambeth and Southwark—where one part stands under the new scheme being piloted and another part of it does not. That can create a problem if part of one party’s votes come from a system where the registration has gone up and another part does not. So, may we please get a commitment from the Government or the Electoral Commission that when they are running pilots they will consider that point and preferably not run them in places where constituency boundaries do not line up? Finally, I completely understand the Government’s arguments that reform cannot happen overnight and that we need to do it securely, accurately and carefully, especially when it comes to ensuring that only those who are eligible to vote, go out and vote. The Government have made the right decision to put a legislative framework in place for automatic and direct voter registration. We just need to know when it will be implemented.
12. Farmers in Wales are suffering the dire consequences of drought, topped off by the horrific wildfires we had in south Wales and across the Monmouthshire borders in recent weeks. I am extremely grateful to the Prime Minister for sending troops to help the amazing fire service, including to Blaenavon. At this difficult time, will the Minister update me on how the UK Government are supporting our farmers?
I, too, welcome the First Secretary of State to her place, particularly as she has smashed another glass ceiling by being the first woman to hold the role. In her statement, she talked about wildfires. There was not one in Monmouthshire per se, but they were all around the edge of Monmouthshire, and there was a lot of smoke in houses in Abergavenny. I therefore really look forward to the summit she will hold on wildfires. One thing that the First Secretary of State did not mention and which I would like to draw her attention to is civil service pensions. I have a huge number of constituents who are waiting. I know that that issue comes under her Department, and I would really like her support on it.
In Stourbridge, Brierley Hill and Netherton we have been negatively impacted by the effects of the steel strategy and by measures brought in by the EU such as tariffs and quotas. Does the hon. Member agree that if we had a closer trading relationship with the EU, constituencies like mine and likely his would be far better off?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) for introducing this important debate. We were told that Brexit means Brexit, but what does that mean? We have heard a lot about sausages this morning; perhaps Brexit means breakfast—that certainly makes a lot more sense than that three-word slogan. A decade on from the EU membership referendum, we face higher costs, lower growth and less influence. Brexit has made the UK poorer, more isolated and less competitive. The promised trade deal with the US has failed to materialise; instead, Trump has threatened the UK with crippling tariffs. The post-Brexit trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand negotiated by the previous Conservative Government delivered only marginal economic benefits, while the deal with Singapore merely rolled over the arrangements that we enjoyed prior to Brexit. As for Canada, after years of negotiations, the UK has still been unable to secure an enhanced agreement. Rather than unlocking a new era of prosperity, those deals have largely fallen short of the promises. Since Brexit, trade with our largest market has become slower, costlier and more bureaucratic. British exporters now face customs checks and regulatory barriers that did not exist before, and goods exports to the EU remain below their pre-Brexit levels. The OBR estimates that UK trade will ultimately be around 15% lower than it would have been had we remained in the EU. Brexit’s worst effects can and must be reduced, and that is why this Government’s efforts to rebuild our relationship with the EU matter. By pursuing closer co-operation and greater regulatory alignment where it serves our national interest, the Government are helping to make trade easier, but we need to go much further. Europe remains our biggest trading partner, and a pragmatic relationship with our closest neighbours is not an ideological choice but an economic necessity. We cannot erase the damage and costs of Brexit overnight, but we can reduce them to help British business and industry thrive.
I thank those hon. Members whose excellent amendments I have put my name to. There are dozens of them, so I could not list them all, but they included amendments on electoral reform, capping political donations, crypto, and preventing domestic abusers from standing for election. Today, I speak in support of my new clauses 32 and 33, which would require candidates in parliamentary and local government elections in England and Wales to obtain an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check. Public trust in politics is at a historic low. The National Centre for Social Research found that 79% of people surveyed believed that Britain’s system of Government needed significant improvement. That long-running survey, conducted since 1986, shows a marked decline in confidence in our political institutions over recent decades. The reasons for that decline are complex, but repeated cases of misconduct by elected representatives have undoubtedly played a part. In recent years, Parliament has seen a series of high-profile cases involving bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct. In the last Parliament, several Members were suspended, sanctioned or forced to leave office following serious findings or criminal convictions. In 2023, it was reported that more than 50 MPs had been referred to Parliament’s independent complaints and grievance scheme for bullying, harassment or sexual misconduct. The overwhelming majority of MPs and councillors serve with integrity and dedication, but the actions of a small minority damage the reputation of all of us in public life. The same principle applies in local government. Councillors often hold positions of public trust and responsibility, including things connected to safeguarding and child protection, yet there have been numerous examples of councillors convicted of serious offences or resigning following allegations of misconduct. We rightly require taxi drivers, teachers, social workers, healthcare professionals and many others to undergo DBS checks before they can work in positions involving public trust and contact with vulnerable people. It is therefore reasonable to ask why those seeking elected office should be exempt from the equivalent requirement. Of course, a DBS check is not a guarantee of good conduct—no safeguarding measure is foolproof—however, it would establish a minimum standard and set an important precedent. It would send a clear message to those seeking elected office that they should meet the same basic expectations that we apply to everyday workers. As elected representatives, we regularly interact with constituents, volunteers, parliamentary and political staff, and members of the public. We visit schools, youth groups, hospitals, care settings, community organisations and in many cases we come into contact with children, young people and vulnerable adults. In any other role involving that level of contact, a DBS check would be regarded as the basic and proportionate requirement. Since becoming an MP, I have been asked when visiting schools whether I have been DBS checked, and people have been surprised to learn that we are not required that have it. My new clauses are not about restricting democracy; they are about strengthening confidence in it. They are about safeguarding the public, improving standards in public life and helping to rebuild trust in our public and democratic institutions. My new clauses would require candidates to hold a DBS check prior to submitting their application to the returning officer, therefore placing no financial burden on Government or councils. I urge the Government to consider the proposals seriously. Will the Minister set out what further steps the Government intend to take to strengthen safeguarding, improve standards in public life and restore public trust and confidence in elected representatives?
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) for securing this debate. The behaviour of the right-wing media outlets that peddled the views of their billionaire owners about the Brexit referendum was a perfect example of the wealthy and powerful influencing our politics and, ultimately, striving to maintain the existing class structure of our country. Much of the multimillionaire and billionaire class saw the Brexit referendum as a business opportunity and, through the media, they latched on to and exploited the despair that many working-class communities felt. It is incredibly frustrating that politicians refuse to accept why millions of working-class people voted for Brexit, but it really should not take too much analysis. Communities felt demoralised and desperate, and people needed something to change—so much so that they grasped on to the notion that leaving the European Union was the answer to improve their lives. I do not blame them, because places have been asset-stripped and abandoned. MPs arrogantly preaching to people that they were wrong to vote for Brexit will not cut through in marginalised communities. That only drives people into the political extremes of the right.
That is a reasonable, candid and honest assessment, and I agree with it. It is up to us, now that we are in government, to raise living standards and give people faith and hope. If we do that, the spivs and speculators of Reform and Restore will be rejected. So I say to the Minister: can we properly analyse why right-wing parties are convincing people that they are the ones who will turn people’s lives around? They are conning people again, even after the lies that they told about Brexit. Referendums have a vital place in our democracy, but let us acknowledge that they can create uneasy bedfellows and awkward alliances. The impact of that is clear when I look at the fortunes of my Scottish Labour party. I am afraid that Scotland is still dominated by the constitutional question. Painting everyone as either nationalist or Unionist has distracted Scots from the real political issue that affects us: whether you are from Alloa or Aldershot, Stenhousemuir or Stoke, politics is always about class. Class must be put back on the political agenda. Many people back home do not know what we in Scottish Labour now stand for or who we stand with. We must appreciate that campaigning alongside Tories, who did so much damage to Scotland, was seen as a betrayal of our class. If we ever want a Scottish Labour Government in Holyrood again, we must appeal to what was once a large chunk of our Scottish Labour vote, which has found its political home in the Scottish National party. Do we not see that competing for just a small, diminishing Unionist vote is swimming in shallow, crowded waters and will never lead to us being in government again? I am not saying that we should back independence, but we should lay out the democratic route to having another referendum. If we do that, we will be speaking to a huge number of Scots who left us. Who knows? They might even listen to us again. Scotland needs to break the constitutional deadlock and Scottish Labour needs to shift from a position of dogged inflexibility, otherwise we are heading for the irrelevance of perpetual opposition. That would mean we would never be able to put Labour values into a Government that Scotland so desperately needs.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. It is also a pleasure to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and to congratulate him on securing this debate. It is a further pleasure to be taken back, at least momentarily, to my summer holiday in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law). I will not say where I would rather be at this particular moment. Scientists have said that the shortest scientifically measurable period of time is 247 zeptoseconds, but I can confirm that my own research has found an even shorter measurable time than that, which is the period between someone being appointed the Minister for critical minerals and all the Labour MPs from Cornwall contacting them to ask for meetings and conversations about the potential for critical minerals in that part of the world. Perhaps appropriately for a debate on mining, they are Stakhanovian in their work effort on this issue. This debate on global tin availability is timely, as has been said. It is not always the mineral that attracts the big headlines, but to respond to the first request of my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth, I confirm that the Government absolutely recognise that tin is central and fundamental to modern economic life. It is the solder that connects circuit boards, semiconductors, data infrastructure, automotive electrics and of course defence technologies. When global tin supply is tight, the impact can be felt far beyond mining markets, in manufacturing costs, supply chain resilience, investment decisions and, ultimately, the UK’s ability to deliver growth, energy security and national security. My hon. Friend’s constituency is absolutely central to that discussion and to meeting those challenges. It is home to significant tin deposits, including the South Crofty tin mine, which has a high-grade tin resource and the potential to re-establish meaningful primary tin production in the UK. That matters not only for Cornwall’s proud mining heritage, which I was going to say goes back to the bronze age, but given that tin is one of the constituent parts of bronze, perhaps it predates the bronze age. Cornwall is the tin isles mentioned by Herodotus. As has been said, however, the future of tin mining is of much more immediate importance, and a source of excitement. The question before us is not simply whether we can mine more tin again, but how a secure, responsible and diverse tin supply can support jobs, industrial competitiveness, clean energy deployment and economic resilience.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his offer of support for the effort. One of Northern Ireland’s key economic strengths is advanced manufacturing, and the importance of tin runs through that sector from top to bottom. Tin underpins so much: advanced manufacturing, automotive production, aerospace, clean energy technologies, data centres, telecommunications and defence, all of which are important for Northern Ireland and the UK at large. If tin is scarce, volatile or increasingly concentrated in a few countries, as hon. Members have mentioned, those pressures can affect investment confidence, productivity and our competitiveness in the sectors within the industrial strategy. It is not enough, as my hon. Friends the Members for St Austell and Newquay and for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) have said, simply to leave this matter to the market. We have a responsibility to make sure that local people benefit from it. As my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall also said, it is essential to our ability to deliver on the industrial strategy as a whole. Critical minerals in themselves are an essential part of the UK economy, but they also underpin everything else that we are trying to achieve. That is why the critical minerals strategy is focused on resilience, improving our understanding of demand, supporting domestic capability where it is viable and environmentally responsible, increasing recycling and working with international partners so that UK businesses are not dependent on fragile or overly concentrated sources of supply. We cannot onshore every part of the supply chain, but where we have those resources—as we clearly do in Cornwall—capable companies, the environmental protections and community support here in the UK, we can make a contribution to that resilience. That is why, for example, we supported the South Crofty tin project through £20 million of equity investment and last week announced a £71 million investment into Tungsten West. As hon. Members have said, exploration and mining are great, but we also want to see more processing, refining and recycling in the UK. That is why we put the £25 million critical minerals accelerator in place: to help viable projects to get over that hump and get into the market. It is why we are introducing BICS to make the energy costs for potential refining projects more affordable and dealing with things like grid connections. The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds), asked about intelligence. We have instituted the growth minerals list to get a sense of our demand and introduced the demand aggregator to get a sense of that with allies. The Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre published a prospectivity report, which sets out exactly what he asked about in terms of the potential resources, and we work with the British Geological Survey on that basis. As I said, we are working with international partners to make sure that we have reliable prices, diverse sources and material produced to the high standards that the modern economy requires. In conclusion, tin has a major economic footprint. It connects the technologies that power our homes, vehicles, factories and communications. The global availability of tin therefore matters to prices, productivity, resilience and good growth. The Government’s approach is clear: support responsible domestic production where we can, recover more value through recycling, build better data on demand, mobilise finance and work with international partners to diversify supply. By doing so, we can reduce vulnerability, support British industry, create skilled jobs and ensure that the UK economy has access to the critical minerals that it needs for the future. I look forward to working with hon. Friends to that end—and, as I am the only person who has not mentioned Tinder, let me finish by saying that I will always swipe right for my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) for securing this debate. The impact of the 2016 EU referendum is felt particularly sharply in our fields, glasshouses and farming communities. For agriculture and horticulture, leaving the EU has fundamentally changed access to labour. The end of free movement has effectively ended the dependable flow of workers from the EU, on which many growers rely to plant, tend and harvest their crops. The result has been greater complexity and cost, and many farmers and growers cannot afford that cost. We have replaced the common agricultural policy with the environmental land management scheme and sustainable farming incentive. I strongly support paying farmers to look after the countryside, but we must be honest about the consequences of an all-or-nothing approach. Global shocks have driven up the cost of energy, fertiliser, feed and other inputs. As a result, there are crops that are simply no longer profitable to grow. What happens then? Either farms are amalgamated into larger operations, potentially owned by distant multinational corporations, or crops simply stop being grown in the UK. Neither outcome is good for our food security. I believe that we need a mixed system that rewards farmers for producing the food we need while also supporting them to protect and improve our land. Brexit has brought new trade barriers. Tariffs, paperwork and non-tariff barriers have disrupted what were once smooth trading relationships with our nearest market, while new trade deals bring both opportunities and uncertainties.
I say to the hon. Gentleman that, as he was a member of the Government who signed up to the dodgy trade deal with Australia and New Zealand that sold our farmers down the river, he has single-handedly undermined the sheep and cattle industry in the UK—something he can be very proud of. That is why I welcome the Government’s efforts to reset relations with the EU and pursue an SPS agreement, but I have one further warning to the Minister: in seeking closer alignment, we cannot lose Britain’s first-mover advantage on precision breeding. In South Norfolk, our scientists and growers are leading the way. Precision breeding is already showing enormous promise, including with sugar beet and other crops. Climate change, pests, diseases, drought and flooding are already threatening our food security. If we are serious about producing more food at home, we must allow our farmers to use every tool in the chest. We must learn from the impact of Brexit, address its consequences honestly, and build a system that backs British farmers and growers to give us the food security we need. On a wider issue, Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster for many of my constituents in South Norfolk. It has led to divided families, businesses not being able to thrive as much as they want to and a tidal wave of red tape that has harmed the UK economy. I urge the Minister to explain in his wind-up remarks how Labour will push forward to remove that red tape and those barriers so that we can have a faster and more productive economy for all.
I welcome my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour to her place; she will make a fantastic Minister. I want to start by talking about the risks that we are seeing to our democracy: the emergence of AI and the use of crypto to fund parties, alongside an expanding electorate and a move away from the two-party system. It is vital that the Bill introduces a much-needed refresh. One area that the Bill has overlooked is electoral participation, which has been in stark decline for many years. At the last general election, just 59.7% of the electorate voted—the lowest turnout since 2001. The picture is far worse in local elections and by-elections; the Clacton by-election, for instance, saw turnout of a mere 44%, although there may have been other reasons for that. Low turnout is indicative of a worrisome lack of engagement in the most integral act of political participation. That is why I have tabled new clause 57, which would require the Government to publish proposals for compulsory voting at UK general and local elections in England within 12 months of the Bill passing. Since the introduction of compulsory voting in 1924, Australia has consistently seen a minimum turnout of 90%, with only a minimal fine for non-participation. There are, of course, legitimate reasons why some cannot vote, and this new clause recognises that, while also protecting the right to spoil one’s ballot paper or return a blank paper. Coupled with the compulsory voting provision, new clause 57 would introduce a programme of civic education. This is important, as research from the Institute For Public Policy Research shows that fewer than 42% of teachers in England report their school providing regular citizenship lessons. As the incredibly bright young people who participated in my activism academy this summer told me, it is not just young people who need political education through no fault of their own—many adults also do not understand the basics of our political system. Knowledge is power, which is why new clause 57 calls for the production of learning materials for adults, too. Alongside new clause 57, I support a number of new clauses that would extend the franchise in parliamentary elections to qualifying EU citizens and foreign nationals with the right to remain in the UK. I have also supported measures that address the wild west of UK political donation regulations. Our democracy is seriously at risk of being hijacked by those who have only their own interests at heart. I am extremely proud to support my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) with new clauses 58 and 59 to protect survivors of domestic abuse in public life. I do not understand why support of such new clauses would even be a question or why we would not support them right now, today. Finally, although the Bill does not cover constituency boundaries, I would really like to see a review of how they are set. We represent constituents regardless of their right to vote, and thinking about the numbers in terms of the electorate who go on to vote, fewer and fewer people are involved in our political decisions. However, it is not just that: boundaries drawn on the electorate, not on residents, mean that inner-city constituencies like mine, which have the highest levels of residents relative to electorate, face disproportionately higher levels of casework, representing far more people. I hope that the Minister will consider this matter when enacting part 2 of the Bill. Bills of this nature do not come around often. They offer a generational chance to refresh our democracy, and I hope that the Government will recognise the benefits that these amendments would bring.
I rise to speak to new clauses 58 and 59 in my name. For far too long, survivors of domestic abuse have been locked out of our politics, for reasons ranging from the risk to physical safety to the threat of further exposure to post-separation harassment, as well as the serious toll on mental and emotional wellbeing. I know this all too well from my own horrific election experiences, where my ex-husband stood against me. I know that my experiences are not unique, and there are others who have suffered. In fact, many people who are survivors of domestic abuse cannot make the decision to run and stand for office because of the associated risks. New clauses 58 and 59 would resolve all those issues by extending to survivors of domestic abuse the protections that are afforded to the victims of other offences by enhancing disqualification orders under the Elections Act 2022, so that domestic abuse offences are adequately covered. I am proud to say that so many leading women’s rights and violence against women and girls organisations, including Elect Her, the Jo Cox Foundation, Right to Equality, Women’s Aid, Southall Black Sisters and many more, have joined me in calling for the law to change, along with at least 40 Members from all parties across this House. I am very grateful for that support. The chief executive of the Electoral Commission wrote to me recently agreeing that these amendments would “help strengthen candidate protection and enforcement against perpetrators.” I am asking Members to support new clauses 58 and 59, and I am calling on the Government to adopt those changes. I am grateful to the Minister for her engagement over the past few weeks on my amendments, and for meeting with me. In her closing remarks, I hope that she will confirm that the Government will consider updating schedule 9 of the Elections Act through secondary legislation, looking at protections for survivors of domestic abuse, including a greater number of relevant offences being included, so that survivors can confidently and safely stand in elections. Our democracy cannot be said to be representative if we tolerate the structural barriers that block out survivors. Every survivor of domestic abuse should have the same right as anyone else to stand for office.