David Simmonds

I can hear voices challenging that, asking, “So a little bit of crime is okay?” We need to recognise a point similar to those made by Members across the Chamber about crypto. The world is changing. We have very significant and onerous duties for opening a UK bank account and proving our identity, but we live in a world where more organisations are coming to the market and saying, “We can provide you with that document, but without the need to meet any of those standards,” in exactly the same way as people are using crypto to transfer money around without the audit trail that we see with other forms of financial transactions. We need to make sure that our electoral system meets the test and that we can identify those exercising their vote in that way. In conclusion, we have heard from across the Chamber a variety of different examples of improvements that could be made to the Bill. Some of those we as the Opposition will agree with, and some of them we will not, but I hope that Ministers will heed the calls from Members across the House, and particularly those of their own Back Benchers. I was struck by the observations and criticisms of the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) and the hon. Members for Stockport (Navendu Mishra), for Rushcliffe (James Naish) and for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), all of whom set out ways in which this Bill falls short of the minimum expectations that we would have for an appropriately modern and secure piece of electoral legislation. We will approach the Bill Committee in that constructive spirit, but I have to say that at the moment it certainly feels that a number of the measures are in this Bill specifically for the objective of the Government’s own electoral advantage.