My Lords, I support this group, and I will speak specifically to Amendments 58 and 59, to which I have added my name. But first I will make some points about the group in general. In the Commons the Minister said:
“The Government are committed to increasing participation in our democracy and to empowering all those eligible to vote to do so in a secure, efficient and effective way”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/1/22; col. 83.]
Yet a wide range of civil society groups, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee have all voiced concerns about how the voter ID requirements will have the opposite effect for marginalised groups. We heard powerfully from the noble Lord, Lord Woolley of Woodford, about that earlier.
When these concerns were raised in the Commons Committee, the Minister tried to turn the tables with the extraordinary response that to suggest that those groups more likely not to hold the requisite photo ID would not be able to access photo cards
“is to unfairly diminish the agency”,
and
“assuming from the get-go that people are disadvantaged on the basis of their background is stigmatising and denies them their agency”.—[Official Report, Commons, Elections Bill Committee, 22/9/21; col. 127.]
As the author of a book on poverty, one of the central themes of which is the importance of recognising the agency of those living in poverty, I would point out that agency has to be understood in the context of the myriad structural constraints and barriers they face. The same applies to all the marginalised groups that concern us here. The Bill will increase those barriers further.
I now turn to the impact of Clause 1 on people in poverty, which I am pleased to say has already been touched on by my noble friend. As she said, the official evidence made available and statements made do not address this directly at all, as income status is not one of the parameters researched, even though the indicators of the likely adverse impact on the unemployed and on people in social housing should have set a red light flashing, prompting further research into those on low incomes. That it did not do so speaks volumes. Instead, as my noble friend also said, we are indebted to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for carrying out the research. I will not repeat the details that my noble friend mentioned, but of the total of all those on low incomes who did not have photo ID, thought that what they had was unrecognisable, or were not sure, only about half said that they would be likely to apply for a voter card, and two-fifths said they were unlikely to, or were unsure whether they would.
That is not to deny the agency of this group, but it might reflect a reluctance to engage with the state in this way, because of a lack of trust, as a number of commentators have observed. Or it may be a function of the sheer hard work involved in getting by in
poverty. Getting by in poverty is itself an example of time-consuming agency, the more time-consuming when also juggling multiple jobs, long hours and/or insecure work.
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Moreover, psychological research has illuminated the
“cognitive constraints of life in poverty”
that can reduce “bandwidth” and mean immediate demands on time can override longer-term planning. People on low incomes are already less likely to vote than better-off people, for a variety of reasons. According to JRF, the gap in turnout increased significantly between 1987 and 2015. Although the trend was bucked in 2017, there was still a clear social gradient in turnout in the 2019 election. Surely we should be doing all we can to increase turnout among this group, not raising new obstacles to it.
With regard to ethnicity, while recognising that there is a real issue here for racially minoritised groups generally, I want to focus, like my noble friend did, on the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, who are particularly disadvantaged in a number of dimensions. There is no sign yet of the long-promised strategy from the Government on doing something about the disadvantages faced by this group. As far as I could see, the report published today, Inclusive Britain, does not mention this group. I may be wrong—but the noble Lord is nodding his head, so I do not think that it does. It is one of the most disadvantaged ethnic groups in this country.
The equality impact assessment notes that the Cabinet Office survey of eligible voters
“did not reach a sufficiently large sample size of those who identify as White Gypsy or Irish Traveller to make reliable statistical estimates.”
The document acknowledged:
“Available research elsewhere suggests this group are less likely to hold some types of photo ID”
and are,
“according to the 2011 Census, least likely to have a UK or non-UK passport, with 66% holding a passport compared to an average of 86% across all ethnicities.”
The Traveller Movement carried its own small-scale research that suggested that the proposed ID law would create further barriers to voting for this group, who would struggle disproportionately with the new requirements. It points out that nomadic Travellers and those who live on sites already struggle with access to basic infrastructure, including postal services and internet access, which prevents them from registering to vote, or acquiring other forms of documentation or ID. The movement warns that mistrust of state institutions could act as a barrier to applying for ID or a voter card. Indeed, today’s Inclusive Britain report acknowledges more generally that
“there is clearly still a trust deficit which some groups have towards the UK and many of its institutions.”
I suggest that the groups that we are talking about in these amendments are particularly likely to hold such a trust deficit.
The JCHR voiced its concern that
“the Government do not appear to fully understand the potential discriminatory impact of requiring voter ID on individuals who identify as White Gypsy or Irish Traveller”,
and called for the information to be obtained and provided to Parliament to allow for effective scrutiny. I am not aware that any such information has been provided to Parliament. Instead, in their response to the JCHR’s report, the Government said that there had been official-level and ministerial engagement with civil society organisations representing these groups so as to better understand the impact of voter ID on voting patterns, and that lines of communication with these groups remain open. That is good—but not what the JCHR asked for.
More generally, engagement with civil society groups has been a recurrent theme in government pronouncements on voter ID. This is of course welcome, but can the Minister tell us what engagement there has been with organisations speaking on behalf of people in poverty, or in which people in poverty are themselves involved, so that they can bring the expertise born of experience to these policy discussions?