Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to what has been a thoughtful, wide-ranging and characteristically well-informed debate. I have particularly enjoyed some of the history lessons we have heard about, though I should say to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, that many of the dates she gave were before the Labour Party came into existence—well done for winning those elections. The breadth of experience brought to bear by this House, particularly on electoral matters, is one of its great strengths, and I welcome the careful scrutiny that noble Lords have given to the principles and purposes of this Bill. I, too, echo the thanks that have been given to the many organisations that have provided briefings to us all. I particularly thank Philip Rycroft for all his work on his excellent report. At its heart, the Representation of the People Bill is about strengthening confidence in our democracy, ensuring that our electoral system is secure, accessible and fit for the future; that those who administer and participate in elections can do so safely; and that every eligible citizen is able to take part freely and with confidence. My noble friend Lady Paul spoke powerfully in saying that challenges to our democracy do not come from voters turning up to vote at their local polling stations—we know that. But challenges do come from elsewhere, and we must all put our minds to how we tackle them. I was interested to hear both that the Bill is too big and that it does not include the things which noble Lords from around the House want in it. We have also heard that it is being rushed through—that is an opinion—and we were asked whether it will be in time to address imminent crises in some of the areas we are looking at. We can only do our best to get things through as quickly as we can, and to create a Bill that is practicable and manageable but which tackles the main issues. I will seek to respond to the main points raised in the debate. Where I am not able to cover every contribution in detail, I will of course write to noble Lords. It has been a long debate and I am pretty sure I will not get to everything. I start by thanking the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield for his contributions to your Lordships’ House and I wish him well in his retirement. It was a great honour that he chose this debate for his valedictory, and I am grateful for everything he has done during his time here. I thank my noble friend Lord Macintosh of Eastwood for his maiden speech, which was described by my noble friend Lord Foulkes as powerful, elegant and witty. I totally agree with those sentiments. I note that my noble friend Lord Macintosh is from the Isle of Skye—I have been there only once, but it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and I envy him that. I also echo his thoughts. While we are talking about the political world, as we do in this Bill, all of us owe thanks to our families who put up with the vagaries of living with our political careers. I thank him and wish him well in his career in your Lordships’ House. I start with some of the points made about engagement on the Bill, which is crucial. The measures in this Bill have been developed through close engagement with key partners from across the electoral community and the devolved Governments, and with younger people, civil society organisations, academics, think tanks, the Parliamentary Parties Panel, the Electoral Commission, the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, colleagues from across government, and so on. To deliver these changes, we will continue to work closely with our partners in local and devolved government and with political parties, the electoral sector, education and civil society, and citizens themselves, as we need to ensure that impacts are thoroughly considered and changes are successfully implemented. I absolutely dispute the accusation of lack of consultation. I have been provided with a long list of meetings and engagement that I am happy to provide to the noble Baronesses, Lady Finn and Lady O’Neill. I checked that Philip Rycroft did consult with the Conservative Party during the course of his report. There has been a great deal of talk—not surprisingly in the current circumstances—about donation caps. My noble friends Lord Wills and Lord Foulkes will know that my style is both to listen and to act on Members’ concerns. This Bill will be no exception to that. The noble Lords, Lord Evans of Weardale, Lord Rennard and Lord Carter, my noble friends Lord Watson and Lady Hodge and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, wanted to insert a wide enabling power in the Bill. As I said in my introductory speech, we must put politics back under public control. There are shared concerns about the rise of big money in politics and its ability to dominate public power. This Bill is not the totality of our ambition for electoral reform. Work will continue. As a first step, the First Secretary of State and the MHCLG Secretary of State have written to the Electoral Commission to review spending limits, which we believe are too high. We are establishing a cross-government task and finish team to consider threats to UK democracy, including political funding, illegitimate influence and broader threats to political equality. I have heard all the points raised in the Chamber, and I will take those back for consideration. A number of Peers spoke about the cap and asked why it should be retrospective. We will not allow bad actors to funnel money into our elections in advance of a change in the law. There is a clear time-critical risk of evasion of these new rules that would undermine their purpose if they were brought in at a later date. Donations made by overseas electors—I think this is the information the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, was looking for—that breach the new requirements will have to be returned. Regulated transactions involving an overseas elector as a participant that breach new requirements will have to be repaid. Donations made by individuals who returned to the UK, but who were not overseas electors from 6 July 2026, that breach the new requirements will have to be returned. Regulated transactions involving an individual who has returned to the UK as a participant that breach new requirements will have to be repaid. We are removing the incentive for those who want to circumvent protections that we deem necessary. This is not about any one particular donation. These provisions were in consideration before this weekend. The noble Lords, Lord Wallace, Lord Evans, Lord Rennard and Lord Carter, and my noble friend Lady Hodge raised issues around party spending limits. The Secretary of State and the First Secretary State have asked the Electoral Commission to undertake a review on lowering registered political-party, third-party campaigner and candidate limits to ensure the entire electoral spending framework is scrutinised and fit for purpose. In terms of timing for that, the commission has been asked to provide recommendations no later than July 2027. Completely understandably, we have had a number of contributions on crypto assets. I will write to answer the specific questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. I will make some general comments, but I will write and answer her specific ones. The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, asked very particular questions on this. With this ban, we need to take decisive action to defend the legitimacy and integrity of the democratic system from foreign interference. We do not want to undermine the ban. Applying the ban only after Royal Assent of the Bill would risk bad-faith actors taking advantage of the advance notice of the passage of legislation and undermining public trust in our democracy. As set out by the former Secretary of State on 25 March, any donations made to political parties in crypto assets will not be permitted under the new requirements. Recipients will have a period of 30 days following the coming into force of the provisions in the Bill to return or forfeit crypto-assets donations accepted on or after 25 March 2026, after which enforcement action can be taken and failure to comply will risk criminal liability. There have been a number of comments around think tanks. This has been a really important issue, both debated here today and in the discussions on this Bill outside. Today we have heard contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Brady, and my noble friends Lord Wills, Lord Evans of Sealand, Lady Royall, Lady Hodge and Lady Goudie. Electoral law already covers think tanks that donate or spend during regulated election periods. Our reforms will ensure that only those with a genuine UK connection can contribute to our democracy—for instance, requiring recipients to undertake know your donor due diligence to guard against illegitimate foreign funding. The Rycroft review identified broader risks of foreign financial influence across the political system, including the potential for existing arrangements to be exploited, rather than risks specific to any one type of organisation. Our reforms are designed to address those system-wide vulnerabilities, but we are continuing to think about the issues around think tanks. We heard many points about the consolidation of electoral law. I understand the issue, particularly after listening—not in the Chamber—to my noble friend Lord Shamash setting out how broad the spectrum of electoral law is. We also heard comments from the noble Lords, Lord Evans, Lord Jamieson, Lord Fuller, Lord Norton, Lord Shamash and Lord Pack, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. We understand the calls for consolidation of electoral law. Of course, major reform would take very careful consideration and an extensive amount of time. The Government’s immediate priority is the implementation of our manifesto commitment. A full-scale consolidation and simplification would need an in-depth review and modernisation alongside consolidation, which would be the job of more than one Parliament to achieve. The Government have an ambitious agenda to improve our elections, including giving 16 and 17 year-olds the right to vote and strengthening the rules around donations. We are focused on delivering that agenda via the Bill. However, we are cognisant of the challenges facing election teams. As the noble Lord, Lord Pack, said, we are taking a tiny step towards consolidation with the forms issue, and we will continue to look at areas that can help modernise and improve the electoral process and delivery. We heard many comments—some formulated as questions—on young people voting at 16 and 17, and rightly so. There is a lot of support for this around the Chamber, although I appreciate that it is not universal. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, asked us to look at the Australian preparation for elections. I am very happy to look wherever we can for information about that. I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Brady, meant to say that voting can damage our health. I do not know whether that is a new Tory strapline, but I do not think we will be picking that one up. The noble Lord, Lord Macintosh, spoke about votes at 16 improving voter turnout in Scotland. The noble Baronesses, Lady Leaman, Lady Foster, and Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Markham, spoke about voting at 16 and 17, as did many other Peers. The important question is not what else you can or cannot do at 16 but whether 16 is the right age to be able to vote, and our Government are clear that the answer to that question is yes. Sixteen is the right age to be able to exercise your democratic right. Extending the vote will allow 16 and 17 year-olds to have a say in the government who shape their future and set them up for lifelong engagement in democracy. Sixteen and 17 year-olds have views that deserve to be represented, as my 16 year-old grandson is always telling me. As we have heard from the experiences in Scotland, engaging voters at a younger age will build the foundations for a lifetime of participation in our electoral processes. The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, tried to press me on scientific evidence in favour of 16 and 17 year-olds not being able to vote. I say to the noble Lord that we do not give people the vote based on their intellectual or cognitive abilities, and that applies to 16 and 17 year-olds—as it does to all our voters. Many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Bailey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall, Lady Prashar, Lady Thornhill, and Lady Deech, asked the very important question about the steps being taken to support young people’s voter education, which goes right to the heart of the previous question. My noble friends Lady Lister and Lord Watson referred to the APPG’s work on citizenship education, which I commend. We want to break down barriers and drive participation. We know that education and engagement are a crucial part of implementing this policy. It is vital that young people understand and value democratic processes and feel they are relevant to them. We want to ensure that democracy education reinforces the importance and value of participating and inspires greater democratic engagement, and we want that to start at 16 and continue into adulthood. We are working with the Electoral Commission, the devolved Governments and civil society to consider what additional measures we can take to support schools, colleges and youth groups to roll out practical voter and civic education, and our colleagues in the Department for Education are looking at this in terms of curriculum. There were some important questions about addressing online abuse, particularly abuse targeted at female politicians and candidates. We all need to address online abuse as a matter of urgency. The noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Goudie, and the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, mentioned this: the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, mentioned in particular Ann Widdecombe. We have had a number of attacks on elected politicians that make us focus our minds again, but hundreds of other attacks go on around the country. This is a top priority. The Online Safety Act placed a legal requirement on all tech platforms to proactively tackle the most harmful illegal content, much of which disproportionately affects women and girls. This includes harassment, sexual exploitation, stalking, controlling or coercive behaviour, extreme pornography, and intimate image abuse. We have implemented the new measures in the Online Safety Act and, going further still, we have criminalised the creation of non-consensual sexual deepfakes—building on existing offences—criminalising sharing or threatening to share such content. We have made this offence a priority under the Online Safety Act. We need to continue our efforts in that regard to make sure that this does not have a place in our political dialogue. There were some questions around AI-generated misinformation and disinformation. Illegal AI-generated content is already regulated under the Online Safety Act, as I said. A range of legislative offences apply to deepfakes and misinformation and disinformation in this context, including the false communications offence, which makes it illegal to knowingly spread false information with intent to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm. I have a number of comments on bank cards and whether they undermine the security of the policy. Our understanding is that the policy will remain secure and that this use of bank cards does not undermine it. We are limiting the policy so that only cards from UK-regulated issuers can be used. That is because the UK is recognised having one of the strongest systems in the world for stopping money laundering and terrorist financing, so this safeguard will ensure a high level of security. We are also limiting the policy to cards that have a visible expiration date and require that this date has not elapsed. As bank cards are a non-photographic form of ID, it makes sense that they need to be in date to maintain security and integrity. Although bank cards do not bear photographs, we believe that this is a sufficient and appropriate level of security. The change will ensure that more legitimate electors are able to meet the voter ID requirements and will not be denied their right to vote. The last thing I will have time to cover is the national commission on electoral reform, which a number of noble Lords asked about. I understand the push for that. The Government’s priority is a politics that works for all people. The Prime Minister has been clear on his commitment to bring about a new voting system and he welcomes a national debate about this. But this Bill is not the place to legislate for that debate. We have to get these measures over the line for our 16 and 17 year-olds to vote at the next election and to curb foreign influence in our democracy. Our Prime Minister is open to different ways of having a debate about how we can better include everyone’s vote and voice, and we will set out a path on that in due course. I look forward to those discussions. I did not think I would be able to respond to all the points that were made, and I did not. I will respond to noble Lords in writing where I have not got to them. This Bill is a significant and necessary step in renewing the foundations of our democracy. Of course the Government recognise that this House will rightly wish to probe these matters in detail. We will continue to engage constructively as the Bill progresses, and I look forward to the further scrutiny and debate that will follow in Committee. My noble friend Lord Evans of Sealand mentioned our Prime Minister’s wish for a national conversation about democracy. As I said, I welcome that and look forward to it. But the principle is clear: our democracy works best when it is trusted, secure and open to all those entitled to take part. That is what this Bill seeks to achieve, and it is in that spirit that I commend this Bill to the House.