My Lords, I agree with almost all of the previous contributions. I wish I had joined in on the previous group, but I was not here for all of it—although I certainly feel that I was. The debate covered a lot of the territory that we are going to talk about now.
For clarity, the Green Party opposes the whole premise on which the Government build their case for requiring voters to present ID. There is no real voter fraud. It is no good to keep bringing up Tower Hamlets, because that argument has been demolished already. This will disfranchise the most marginalised people in our population. It is voter suppression; there is absolutely no doubt about that.
Suppose we pretend for a moment that the Government are sincere in wanting to reduce election fraud. If that was so, they would accept a lot of the amendments in this group—for example, Amendment 64. Why on earth should that not be included? The Government could be absolutely clear by putting it in the Bill, so that we know exactly what they are thinking. Why not accept Amendment 78? If somebody has voter ID, they are accredited, so why should they not support somebody else who might have forgotten their ID?
I do not do anything where I have to show ID, although I know the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, says that she has to show it for a lot of things. The last time I was asked for ID was when I used my passport. I do not do anything that needs ID and there are a lot of people like me.
Personally, I think this is Trumpian and Putinesque. We have heard a lot about integrity and trust. I spoke to the Minister about the Government we have at the moment, our Prime Minister, No. 10 and the Cabinet Office, who quite honestly do not understand what integrity is about. They are happy to take money from dodgy Russian donors and happy to break the rules when it suits them. So please do not talk to us about integrity and trust on something like this, when it is clear that it is going to stop some people voting. That is a bad thing.
Of course, we did not hear an answer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. Why are the Government so exercised about this when they have an 80-plus majority? Surely it should be this side of the Chamber that is concerned about voter fraud. The Government are bringing forward some terrible legislation. We sit here and listen to the Ministers—I have a huge amount of respect for most of them—and I just do not understand how they can back this Government. They are a terrible Government, with terrible ideas, and this is another of them.