It would in effect be a national ID scheme, as my hon. Friend says, and that in itself has other implications. That is why the Electoral Reform Society has called this measure “dangerous, misguided and undemocratic.”
Occurrences of election fraud are, thankfully, very rare in the UK and, where they have occurred, they have been disproportionately Conservative party scandals,
but that is not the point: the fact is that no one should be seeking to import the voter suppression tactics of the Republican party in the US. Yet it seems that, having failed to gerrymander the constituency boundaries in the last Parliament, this time the Conservatives are going to go straight to gerrymandering the electorate directly. I say to all fair-minded people: please think again.
It is uncertain whether this Queen’s Speech actually has a majority in Parliament. It is very hard to predict the future and we will know more about where Brexit is at after perhaps this weekend’s sitting, but I believe this country is crying out for a more ambitious agenda, one that rebuilds the basic sense of equity and national solidarity that all successful nations need. That is what my constituents tell me they want and that would truly be a Queen’s Speech worthy of the name.
2.48 pm