Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Oral evidence: Modernising Elections, HC 43
Tuesday 20 October 2026
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 20 October 2026.
Members present: Ms Abena Oppong-Asare (Chair); Lewis Cocking; Andrew Cooper; Ashley Dalton; Mr Lee Dillon; Mr Will Forster; Mr Gagan Mohindra.
Questions 193 - 250
Witnesses
I: Florence Eshalomi MP, Minister of State for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; and Stuart Ison, Director for Elections, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Witnesses: Florence Eshalomi MP and Stuart Ison.
Q193 Chair: Good morning and welcome to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. I will ask the witnesses to introduce themselves—they are very unfamiliar to me!
Florence Eshalomi: Good morning, Chair. I am Florence Eshalomi. I am the Member of Parliament for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green and the Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith, and formerly of the said parish Select Committee.
Stuart Ison: Good morning. I am Stuart Ison. I am the Director for Elections in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Chair: I will ask Committee members to also introduce themselves.
Andrew Cooper: Good morning. My name is Andrew Cooper and I am the Member of Parliament for Mid Cheshire.
Ashley Dalton: Ashley Dalton, Member of Parliament for West Lancashire.
Mr Will Forster: Will Forster, MP for Woking.
Mr Lee Dillon: Lee Dillon, Member of Parliament for Newbury.
Lewis Cocking: Lewis Cocking, Member of Parliament for Broxbourne.
Mr Gagan Mohindra: Gagan Mohindra, MP for South West Hertfordshire.
Q194 Chair: As the Minister will know very well, this Committee launched an inquiry in March this year to examine the significant changes to elections policy in the Representation of the People Bill as well as to point out areas where we think the Government might go further. Over the course of this inquiry, the Committee has considered a number of proposals for the Government: voter registration, voter ID and the implementation of votes at 16. We have also asked what more the Government can do to protect our democracy in an increasingly complex online information environment, so we will come to these issues today with the Minister. During this inquiry, the Minister will remember that Philip Rycroft published his significant review into foreign financial interference in our politics, making some important recommendations for Government, and I know that the Prime Minister is also very interested in this area. This is a topic that we will cover this morning.
Minister, thank you for being here. Before I turn to the Government proposals, on behalf of the Committee I want to refer everyone to the financial register of interests. All our declarations are publicly available, so I ask everyone in the room and online to check our register of interests.
I will begin by asking you this: how confident are you that the reforms to the political finance system will address the risk of interference in our democracy as identified by Philip Rycroft?
Florence Eshalomi: Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the invitation to address the Committee this morning. What we are seeing through the Representation of the People Bill is one of the most significant changes in looking at political finance for decades. The recommendation led by Sir Philip Rycroft looked at the forms of keeping foreign and illicit money out of our politics, making sure that any money coming into UK politics is transparent, traceable and from permissible donors. We are also working with the independent Electoral Commission on strengthening any additional regulation that we need on that, looking at any additional fines that the Electoral Commission can impose, strengthening the way in which political parties, individual donors and campaigners register their donations and a range of measures looking at how individual companies donate.
In response to your main question about foreign interference, we know that there are examples of where foreign actors are trying to influence UK politics. I think it is very important for us to be loud and clear that UK politics is not for sale, and it is so important to make sure that any money coming into UK politics is traceable. I think it is fair to say there is no appetite for public funding for political parties but the reality is that politics, elections and candidates all cost money. It is about how you make sure that any money coming into UK politics is through a transparent measure, that we know who is donating to political parties and candidates.
We are looking at making sure we are strengthening the know-your-donor framework, making sure all of us as candidates and political campaigners know there are additional risk assessments for donations over £11,180, which is the current threshold that is permissible from the Electoral Commission, making sure that any illicit ways to subvert campaigns and donations is traceable. That is why we are being very clear about the use of cryptocurrency, which is a new form of payment. This is not about saying that cryptocurrency is bad but it is about saying how do we trace where cryptocurrencies are originating. It is about looking at an annual cap placed on donations from overseas electors.
We feel that a number of these measures will help to trace and ensure that there is no illicit money coming into UK politics.
Q195 Chair: Thanks for that, Minister. It is good to hear the Government confirm they are supporting Rycroft and the Electoral Commission is working with the Government. You mentioned that the Government are looking to implement the know-your-donor framework, essentially requiring political parties to carry out a risk framework for funds. Will some sort of guidance be given to political parties? Each political party will measure what its risk is very differently. How would that be fairly measured and guidance given to political parties so that they know what they need to report?
Florence Eshalomi: It is very clear that during election campaigns you have paid party staff and many people who are volunteers with political parties. It is about ensuring that the rules are clear. It is working with all political parties and their co-operation is really important on this, making sure that all political parties are aware of those changes before any major elections happen, as we have done and successive Governments have done as well. You will be aware, Chair, that the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission also takes a keen interest in this, with representatives from all the major political parties in Parliament feeding into that. Ultimately, it is about how we clarify existing rules on donations and ensure that the parties are fully up to date with how any new changes are implemented for elections going forward.
Q196 Chair: That is very helpful. If political parties are required to make risk assessments, they need to be given some sort of framework so they know what they are required to do. The Government have said that they are accepting Rycroft’s recommendation—and you have just confirmed it now—to put in place a moratorium on crypto donations. My understanding is that the amendment added at Commons Report does not place the mechanism for lifting the moratorium on the face of this Bill. Why are the Government not making that explicit?
Florence Eshalomi: Just to reconfirm, the Government accepted all the recommendations from the Rycroft review, including the moratorium on crypto donations. Once we have a system in place where the Electoral Commission can work with Parliament to outline a proper mechanism for regulating and identifying cryptocurrency, that will help with protecting the integrity of a donation. The Government’s immediate priority is having that ban in place, and it is about continuing to engage with the EC and other organisations to look at a regulatory framework that will help identify cryptocurrencies in the future. It is also about being clear to say that not all cryptocurrency is bad. A number of people operate in cryptocurrency; it is a new form of payment. It is about getting a better understanding of where the funding is coming from.
As it is now in place, any requirement to lift that ban will require primary legislation, and I think it is right that the Government will come back to the House seeking views and comments, not just from this Committee but from Members right across the House, giving Parliament and wider stakeholders an opportunity to scrutinise that. Given the risk that the Government feel that cryptocurrency currently poses, they wish to keep the moratorium in place until we have a better understanding.
Q197 Mr Gagan Mohindra: Minister, welcome back. On company donations, the Government accepted Rycroft’s recommendation to apply a profit test rather than revenue. However, companies will still be able to donate their profit many times over. Why have the Government chosen not to apply the donation limit to a company’s total political donations in a year, as recommended by the Electoral Commission?
Florence Eshalomi: One of the key things, which I am sure many of us see in our role as constituency MPs, is that many small and medium-sized companies want to donate. That does not mean that they are part of a political party, but they support individual candidates, individual MPs and individual councillors. We also know that for many companies there are periods where they are not making a good profit; there will be peaks, repaying of loans, difficulties and challenges. We think striking the right balance in looking at the post-tax profit over a longer period will help in capturing the permissibility of a company’s finances. It is about closing a loophole for people who are setting up unincorporated companies, shell companies where they can in some cases—and there have been examples—funnel money into the political parties. It is about how we have a political regime and a political finance regime that is robust and able to respond to some of those challenges and make sure that any illicit or foreign money is not coming through.
We have listened to some of the stakeholders and taken on board the comments from the Rycroft review. We feel that by having a longer period looking at actual profits as opposed to a smaller period of two years, a five-year window would help in giving a company credibility and the opportunity to show that they are based in the UK, paying UK taxes, employing UK staff, and making sure that the viability of the company exists as well. I think that on the face of it we have struck the right balance to ensure that there is genuine economic activity in the UK to support genuine donations to candidates, political parties or campaigners.
Q198 Mr Gagan Mohindra: While I applaud the Government’s efforts to make sure we are not creating fake companies and creating turnover and donating off the back of it, the point I was trying to make was about using the same profit level multiple times. To me, that feels like a bit of a loophole around this because if you have a successful company, what is to stop that profit being distributed many times?
Stuart Ison: That is a very good point. That is one of the reasons why we are reflecting very carefully on this and we will be looking to bring forward proposals in the House of Lords to address the challenges that you have just disclosed.
Mr Gagan Mohindra: On the timeframes, in the previous answer you justified why it is five years rather than two. I am fine.
Q199 Andrew Cooper: It is good to see you again, Minister. My question is about the regulated period. For the benefit of the viewers at home, the regulated period happens in the 365 days before an election. As you know, Minister, there are spending limits for the short campaign and the long campaign but political activity happens all year round, whether that is campaigning or donations. Philip Rycroft acknowledged this in his review. The chief executive of the Electoral Commission has talked about the need to set up a regulatory regime that covers the period between regulated periods, not least because foreign interference does not worry too much about when the regulated period is. It happens all the time. Does the Minister consider the current distinction between regulated and unregulated periods remains appropriate in an era of continuous campaigning?
Florence Eshalomi: There are two parts in response to that, Mr Cooper. The regulated period is quite important because it helps with providing transparency around the campaigning period. Many of us in this room know when the short campaign kicks in, when spending limits kick in, but there are also periods where it may feel that a campaign is going on but essentially we have seen over the last few years that there is a lot of activity during the periods outside of a formal election cycle. It is important for us to come back to why some of the key measures in the Representation of the People Bill are outlined. It is about how we ensure that those trying to influence and unduly target UK politics do not have a loophole, do not have a period where they can do that. It is about looking at accountability during the long periods where people may feel that there is not any campaigning going on.
Equally, we must also be careful about not overburdening campaigners. I mentioned that a number of campaigners are volunteers. They are not paid staff. They are doing it because they support political parties or no parties or independent parties. They are doing it because they have an interest in politics. It is about how we make sure that the regulations don’t put off those genuine people and that anyone coming into politics, anyone participating is not hampered or put off by that.
Looking at the current framework set out, we believe that it is the right balance for ensuring that the rules remain fit for purpose. We are looking at how we deliver recommendation 4 in the Rycroft review about the transparency of candidates’ donations in the lead-up to an election outside of the regulated period. There is still a lot more work to be done in that area and that is one of the areas that I think we will definitely come back to in due course.
Q200 Andrew Cooper: Is there a risk that if we don’t get this right we will just end up displacing activity into an unregulated period, in particular from foreign influence?
Florence Eshalomi: On balance, that is one of the things we would want to test with the Electoral Commission. A number of different political parties or people who don’t even see themselves as political candidates are fundraising now. I know that if you go on some pages you will see a donate button. Would that count as election spend? When do you start valuing and quantifying that money? These are all areas that I think we need the Electoral Commission to be a lot clearer on as the independent body that will regulate the funding and donations received by individuals and political parties.
Q201 Andrew Cooper: Indeed. As I said at the beginning, the chief executive of the Electoral Commission said in his letter to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy that it was keen to start that work, it was keen to get going on it. Have the Government asked it to start that work? Do you know if any work has commenced at the Electoral Commission?
Stuart Ison: It is a really important area. As we described in the opening moments of this Committee, there is a huge amount of work going on with the Electoral Commission in a number of areas. We are working with the Electoral Commission on issues like guidance for all of the things that the Chair described at the start of this meeting. There is a huge body of work ongoing. We are talking to them about the regulated period, which of course has a number of different strands. We will request that work as quickly as possible but, as the Minister has said, for the time being we believe that the current arrangement for the regulated period strikes an important and fine balance between not overburdening campaigning organisations and parties but also providing the right level of transparency. We will continue to keep it under review and of course we welcome the views of this Committee.
Q202 Andrew Cooper: Thank you, Minister and Mr Ison. I want to be absolutely clear. You said that there is work going on with the Electoral Commission and that you are talking to the Electoral Commission about this issue. Just for the avoidance of doubt, have you asked the Electoral Commission to do some work specifically on this, as it has said it needs to?
Stuart Ison: We have begun conversations with them on the regulated period. As I said, there is a huge amount of work ongoing by the Electoral Commission in a range of different areas. We will be looking to progress those discussions over the course of the coming months. I don’t believe they have a specific strand of work on that. They have got enough to do at the moment, but it is very important and we will address it very quickly.
Q203 Andrew Cooper: Do you have an idea when that work might begin?
Stuart Ison: Not at this time, but we will keep the Committee updated.
Andrew Cooper: Thank you.
Q204 Mr Lee Dillon: Stuart, you said that the Electoral Commission is working on a number of different guidance documents, based on the Chair’s opening statement. One would assume that there is a work plan for those guides, for example to come to you for checking before final publication or for feedback. Are you able to share that timetable with this Committee so we can see the schedule of work that you said is in progress now?
Stuart Ison: Yes. I am sure the Electoral Commission won’t mind me saying that we have spent many joyful afternoons in the last few weeks working through some of the issues. On the timetable, I would be happy to share something with the Committee in due course. I don’t have it to hand but I am happy to share it.
Mr Lee Dillon: It would help us to be able to feed in at the opportune moments. Thank you.
Q205 Chair: I want to ask a follow-up question. I think it is good that the Electoral Commission is doing work on this. We know that foreign interference is a global matter. Have you been looking at other countries to see what they are doing on this, to see if there are best practices that we could be doing in the UK?
Stuart Ison: I am happy to come in on this, if that is helpful. The answer is yes. There is a very wide range of different practices taken forward by countries across the world. We have regular dialogues in particular with countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand, who are addressing similar challenges. Likewise, we talk with our European partners about some of these issues. We had a recent event that the Foreign Office helped to organise with a range of different countries looking at some of these challenges. The answer is yes but, of course, each country faces slightly different issues and there are varying different approaches. There is a lot to learn and it is a very important area.
Florence Eshalomi: I think, Chair, in your formal role, the Defending Democracy Taskforce is not just Ministers from MHCLG but Ministers from MOJ, Home Office, DSIT, DCMS, all those key areas of online safety and finances coming together to look at additional threats. It is a whole Government approach to looking at foreign interference.
Q206 Chair: I am a bit concerned about the unregulated period. I feel that a lot of work is being done on the regulated period but it will just mean so much will be done during that period that we won’t be monitoring that will be damaging to democracy. That is why I was asking about what conversations you have had with other countries to see if there are areas we can strengthen in the unregulated period, because that is what I can see slipping through the net.
Florence Eshalomi: That is something I will definitely take back to colleagues on the Defending Democracy Taskforce and the Speaker’s Electoral Commission Committee.
Q207 Ashley Dalton: Welcome, both of you. Minister, earlier you touched on the issue of overseas voters and donors. Recent cases have demonstrated significant legal complexities associated with trying to target donations caps specifically to overseas voters. Can you tell us how and if the new task and finish team will be considering universal donations caps as a potential solution?
Florence Eshalomi: Thank you, Ms Dalton. The Government are still in the process of writing the formal terms of reference and key areas that will be discussed in the task and finish team, but it will be looking at the issue of foreign donations and the loopholes there. I talked about the know-your-donor rules to look at that assessment and risk assessment. There are also the additional measures of the residency test for people coming back to the UK. We understand that many people don’t spend a large proportion of time in the UK. They are overseas, which is fine, but from the day they come back to the UK, are they then donating large amounts to relevant political parties or independent parties?
It is about how we make sure, following on from the Rycroft recommendations and in line with the £100,000 cap, which was the lowest threshold recommendation in the Rycroft review, it is designed to identify any immediate risks. It is making sure that when people come back to the UK they can demonstrate that they have spent the preceding 365 days in the UK before they can donate. Some of these additional measures will help with looking at the donations from people going through. A blanket cap on overseas donors would cause problems with tracing the source of the funding. It is about how we make sure we have measures in place to target some of the larger donations that we see coming into politics such as through cryptocurrencies.
The new task group, which will be chaired by the Secretary of State and the Lord Chancellor, will identify a number of these areas, test out possible scenarios and come back with recommendations to me as the Minister and ultimately back to Parliament.
Q208 Ashley Dalton: Thanks for that. You mentioned that the terms of reference for that task and finish group are still being developed. Do you have a timescale for when those terms of reference will be complete and the group will be able to start?
Florence Eshalomi: There is a lot going on at the moment, Ms Dalton, but because this is a key priority for both me and the Prime Minister, we are pushing colleagues to give us some information on that. As soon as we have any additional information, we will be happy to share it with the Committee.
Q209 Ashley Dalton: Thank you. You talked about what the donations cap might look like and you mentioned the £100,000 lower recommended cap. Some of the witnesses at the Committee, who I am sure you will be aware of, have previously recommended donations caps as high as £1 million to ensure that additional state funding of political parties is not required. Do you have concerns with that approach or any thoughts on that?
Florence Eshalomi: I think it is how we get the right balance and the right funding coming into funding elections. Many of us in this room will hold different fundraisers, events to raise money for our individual campaigns. I think it is testing the level of appetite for public funding in political parties. That appetite is very low at the moment when we look at the situation that the Government and the country are dealing with in funding for key services, public services, key areas. The rationale for a concern about £1 million cap, which seems quite high—I feel that the current threshold is not just in line with the recommendation from Rycroft but it strikes the right balance.
Ultimately it is looking at some of the issues we have talked about with donations coming in during the unregulated periods. A lot more scrutiny of what money is coming in, of companies’ and individual donations and where the funding is coming from will help, but the debate is around where should we put this figure, how much is enough, when you make comparisons to other countries where there are continuous political adverts and no caps or spending limits. The last time the spending limit was increased was under the former Conservative Administration, when the cap was increased to about £1 million I think. We have a healthy balance in the UK, but the questions around the limits will continue to be debated.
Q210 Ashley Dalton: Obviously that limit does continue to be debated. The Secretary of State has asked the Electoral Commission to recommend a lower spending limit. The Committee on Standards in Public Life made a recommendation in 2021. What is the rationale for another review to make a decision?
Florence Eshalomi: The Committee on Standards in Public Life reported in 2021, and a lot has changed in those five years. We are seeing new forms of funding coming into political parties. We are seeing new forms of campaigning, online campaigning taking off. We are seeing new parties form. It is not the traditional two-party politics. We are seeing an appetite for how politics are delivered. It is not a process that we take lightly. I think it is right that any major changes are led by proper consultation with all views being fed in. It is right that the independent Electoral Commission and other expert stakeholders come to a conclusion and an outline that we, as the Government, can then take forward.
Ashley Dalton: Thank you.
Q211 Lewis Cocking: Welcome, Minister, and congratulations on your appointment. I want to talk about automatic voting registration. Will this be done across the whole country for everyone who is eligible to be automatically registered to vote before the next general election?
Florence Eshalomi: Thank you for that, Mr Cocking. We have been very clear that across the country there are about 7 million or 8 million people who are either incorrectly registered or not registered to vote at all. Over the next two years we are hoping to work on creating a new automated voter registration system to ensure that more people can participate in our democracy. To help support that, we are hoping to have different methods tested in different parts of the country to look at a form of an automated system, looking at how we work on existing technology, new technology, to help improve that, and how any permanent changes will be supported by robust evidence. The Bill as it stands now is hoping to help roll that out across the country. I think the Government have been very clear that we are hopeful and trying to move towards an automatic voting system before the next general election. As we all know in this room, Mr Cocking, we do not know when the next general election is. If we are working on the cycle of the current Parliament, the next general election will have to be held before August 2029. We are working with local authorities and the Electoral Commission to have a system in place, hopefully before that date.
Q212 Lewis Cocking: If this Parliament goes the full term until 2029, can you guarantee then that the whole country will be automatically registered or not?
Florence Eshalomi: We are working towards the ambition as set out in the last Labour manifesto of having a system of automated voter registration across the country before the next general election.
Q213 Lewis Cocking: You do not envision having a general election where some people have been automatically registered to vote and other people have not. If that does become the situation, can you not see how the public could perceive that as being unfair?
Stuart Ison: I completely understand your question and your concern. For a bit of context, taking a step back on this a little bit, first, arrangements for automated voter registration are incredibly complex. If you look back at the Australian example, in the context of a compulsory voting system it took them over a decade to introduce an automated voter registration system.
What we are trying to do is to build towards that and take some important steps to improve voter registrations for the reasons the Minister has set out, the very high levels of either incorrect or no registration at all. Your concern is very much one about doing it in certain areas and not others, which I understand. That is why we want to test automated registration in a range of different areas, different demographics, different geographies, different locations, different types, testing rural and urban, and so on. We will try to ensure that we protect these arrangements, and to inform outreach with local authorities who may want to pilot, is to develop a set of criteria with the Electoral Commission to ensure that when we do this, it is done in a fair and balanced way.
We also want to talk to political parties about this because we understand the concerns that you have raised, Mr Cocking. They are entirely understood. We will be working with the Political Parties Panel, which the Electoral Commission chairs, to make sure that we are listening to the political parties as this is rolled out. There is a lot of work to do. There is some uncertainty about it in the sense that we are trying to use data in very innovative ways, pooling data from across Government to make this happen. There is a lot of work still to do.
To finish, there is also a lot that can be done within local authorities already. We are conscious that people will move frequently within local authorities, sometimes in the same authority, and there is data that is held there where people have already registered at one address and then have moved, and therefore their registration is not valid any more. We think there is more that can be done within local authorities to address that as well. Forgive me, a lot there, but there is a huge amount of work going on.
Q214 Lewis Cocking: You are not answering my question, and you do not give me any comfort that we could not have a general election where some people are automatically registered and some people are not. When you speak about the pilots specifically, are they for local elections? Are they for constituency elections to elect MPs? What do you envisage those demonstrations to be?
Stuart Ison: This has all got to be worked through. As I said, as and when these pilots take place, we will be working with the Electoral Commission on those criteria to ensure we have the right balance for where these pilots are taking place and in what areas. We also want to work with the political parties for the reasons I have described, to make sure that there is an ability for political parties to feed into that process as well. The point I am trying to make is that it will take a while to get this running. We need to make sure it works. We are protecting the electoral register here. It is important we get this right.
Q215 Lewis Cocking: For complete clarity then, if we have the next general election in 2029 and half the people, so half of that 8 million, let us say 4 million, have been automatically registered and 4 million have not, would you perceive the result of that general election as fair or unfair?
Stuart Ison: As I said, what we are trying to do is to make sure that, over time, we are building and improving the way in which voters are registered. I simply cannot comment specifically on the question you have asked, but the process will be there, and we will be engaging with you and with colleagues, and indeed with this Committee, to make sure that you understand and are fed into the way in which those pilots are taking place.
Florence Eshalomi: I think one of the other issues is that some of us will speak to people on polling day who say, “Yes, I do want to vote”, but then they will find out that they are not on the electoral register. You have a situation where some voters rightly feel that they can register there and then to vote. How do we make it easier for people to be automatically on their electoral register? That is the main aim. It is not a case of the aim being to look at areas to have more people on the electoral register; it is how we get a fair balance across the country.
As an example, we have a new initiative starting this month where, for anyone renewing their driving licence, as you are filling out the DVLA form, there is a box that will say, “Do you want to be added on to the electoral register?”
How do we make it easier for people to be automatically registered to vote? In answer to your specific question, what we are doing at the moment is inviting local authority areas to be part of the pilots and to come forward. We will be working with the Electoral Commission, making sure that there is a fair spread, a geographical spread across the country—coastal areas, rural areas, urban areas—so that we can get a better understanding of how we can make sure that this automatic voter registration works in practice before we then roll it out across the country.
Q216 Lewis Cocking: Just for luck, one more, if that is okay, Chair. To labour the point, I want to make you understand that even doing it by local authorities can cause issues. My constituency of Broxbourne is across two district councils, both of which have electoral registration responsibilities. One of those could be part of the pilot, and one of those could not. I could end up facing a general election in my constituency where some of my voters have been automatically registered, and some have not. Unless you are going to do everyone at the same time for a general election, you must understand that it could be perceived—it could cause lots of challenges, between knocking in one street saying that people there are automatically registered and can go down to vote, and knocking in the street next door to say they are not, if that makes sense. I just want to make sure you understand that point.
Florence Eshalomi: I think that is a valid observation and something that we will definitely be taking back. As this process for automatic voter registration develops, that is something that we will definitely be feeding in to look at. We look at any unintended consequences.
Q217 Chair: I have two follow-up questions, and then I will bring in Andrew, Lee and Ashley. The Welsh Government have already carried out automatic voter registration. There are examples there of best practices, what will work and what will not work. We are keen to hear from you what work is being done to engage with the Welsh Government to speed up the process, particularly for the general election. I wanted to touch on an answer that Stuart gave to Lewis. You mentioned approaching local authorities that might want to pilot this. I may have misunderstood this. So that I can understand this better, will the Government go to local authorities and ask, “Do you want to carry out the pilot?” I am struggling to understand the rationale behind that, particularly if you are looking for different demographics, how are you going to make sure that those demographics are the ones that you are correctly piloting? Personally, I just do not understand why there is such a delay.
Florence Eshalomi: On your last point about the delay, you will appreciate, Chair, that some authorities are going through local government reorganisation. You will also appreciate that a number of local authorities are facing quite difficult financial challenges. This is a key priority for the Government, so we are still inviting and writing to local authorities.
We are also working with the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators, which, again as you will know, Chair, administer all the elections across the country, and different civil society organisations in working on this automatic voter registration. The other key group that we need to engage with are the political parties themselves, around automated voter registration. It is not a case of us telling local authorities to respond to this. It is a whole range of different organisations as well. I think that will help us in making sure there is a good geographical spread across the country, that we are taking in different structures, different sizes, different demographics across the country, because we know that voting patterns in urban areas will be very different from maybe coastal areas, for example. On working with other devolved Administrations—
Stuart Ison: Shall I come in on that? In Wales, the important distinction here is that for the Senedd elections, when an individual is registering to vote, they do not need to prove their nationality. There is an increased complexity here for the way in which we want to register people for parliamentary elections in the UK. There is a distinction there that is important. The Welsh register is about residents, not about nationality. There is a much greater focus on nationality in registering to vote for UK parliamentary elections, which is an important distinction. In gathering the data, that increases the complexity and makes it more challenging. That is the first point.
Coming back to your question about engaging with local authorities, what we have been doing over the course of the last year or so, we ran some flexible voting pilots—rather than automated voting registrations—in four areas last year. We are looking to continue that moving into 2027. We have been reaching out to local authorities to garner interest in that.
On automated voter registration, I want to be clear that we will be guided by the Electoral Commission, by conversations through the Political Parties Panel and by conversations and views from this Committee to guide us to the right approach to reach out to local authorities based on the balance of the issues that the Minister has raised. That will have to happen after the Bill has received Royal Assent, when we are talking about automated voter registration or improving voter registration. What we are doing at the moment, just to be clear, is testing flexible voting. Last year we saw voting in a hub in a shopping centre in Milton Keynes and some early voting pilots in north Hertfordshire and Cambridge and another place I cannot remember off the top of my head. Next year, we will be looking to extend that to do further testing of those flexible voting pilots. Improving voter registration or automated voter registration will come after the Bill has received Royal Assent.
Q218 Andrew Cooper: You have partly pre-empted my question, Chair. I was going to ask about the pilot in Wales. We took evidence from an electoral registration officer from Powys, I think, which was one of the pilot areas. What I took from it was that quite a lot of the work that they had to do was around data cleansing of existing council systems. I think they found that they had some systems where it would be helpful if they recorded other fields about people that they do not currently store, which would help them join together various different datasets that they had. What all this comes around to is that the council needed resources to be able to do that. They needed a significant uplift in resources in job roles that you would not necessarily have expected, essentially data scientist-type roles, people who are used to digging into data and cleansing it. When this ultimately gets rolled out, how are you going to ensure that councils are appropriately resourced to make sure that they are able to undertake this work in an accurate way and in a way that is consistent, so we have a standard offer across the country with this?
Florence Eshalomi: That is a valid question, Mr Cooper. It is one of the changing natures of modern democracy and modern elections. There was a by-election in my constituency two weeks ago, and one of the voters was very angry saying, “Why have we not introduced electronic voting?”, after which we had a very long debate. It is about how we work with electoral returning officers and electoral teams within individual councils—in some cases in many councils those teams have been dilapidated. They are carrying out an important function. It is about ensuring that when there are changes going on with local government reorganisations, those teams are protected, valued and are important. It is about outlining the roles, especially where we will see new changes in political finance, of election agents and people outside of that. I think, ultimately, it is about making sure that conversations are happening with my colleague, the Minister who holds the purse strings on this, making sure that when discussions from the Local Government Association are happening, I will be there to support them when they are making those bids to Minister McMahon for additional funding, to ensure that this is a key priority.
If we are honest about defending democracy and making sure that there is a lot more transparency and a lot more clean money going into politics, it is important to fund the very people we are asking to carry out elections, who do this weekly—everyone focuses on the general election, but there are elections being held up and down the country every week. There are dedicated small teams getting on with that work, so it is important that they are funded adequately.
Q219 Mr Lee Dillon: On Lewis’s last comment, Minister, could you give us an assurance that you will not run a pilot where a constituency could have two sets of approaches or election law in a general election contest, so that a constituency like Lewis’s could never be part of that trial? It feels unfair that you would run a constituency with two different approaches, basically, unless his neighbouring authority is also signed up to it.
Florence Eshalomi: I think that is something that will definitely feed back to the Electoral Commission.
Q220 Ashley Dalton: Will the work on this consider the potential impact, positive or negative, or consequences, of having a mixed platform of voter registration? Will it consider what might be the case if we have a variety of ways of people registering to vote, not one blanket way?
Florence Eshalomi: In terms of—
Ashley Dalton: We may have automatic voter registration happen, as Lewis has mentioned, in some places, but it might not happen in others. I suppose what springs to my mind is that there is an opportunity there to consider what might be the issue—are there issues there? What are those issues? Is it possible to have a mixed platform of voter registration, depending on what works best for different people, for different geographies, for different environments, or are we looking specifically at having one blanket way of registering to vote for everybody?
Florence Eshalomi: I think that is one of the things that we want to test by having the pilots that will help tease out some of those key areas. Why do people not register to vote? Some people feel that you have to do it in person. You can do it online, you can do it on your smartphone. Some people feel that you can only register at your town hall; you can be in the comfort of your own house. It is a case of some people have never considered registering to vote because they feel that maybe they are not eligible to vote. In looking at different methods, looking at different options, these are all things that we would want to test out during those pilots. I think it has been very clear that any permanent changes to the registration process have to be based on robust evidence and research, because essentially we do not want to create a system that makes it harder and defeats the actual aim of registration.
As Stuart highlighted, the key issue we have in England is around access to data and data sharing. We need people to be UK citizens to be able to register to vote in the UK. The Home Office keeps that data, and trying to get things from the Home Office can be very difficult at times. When you are looking at the changes that we are bringing in for enfranchising 16 and 17-year-olds, we also need to ensure that they are UK citizens. The Department for Education does not have that data. It sits with the Home Office. Again, you can see a whole series of data challenges and complexities, but essentially it is around testing different methods to make the voting process a lot easier. This is why the pilots will be invaluable.
Q221 Ashley Dalton: Thank you. Moving on slightly now to voter ID rather than registration, the witnesses to the inquiry have previously criticised the decision to add bank cards as an accepted form of identification. Could you tell us why the Government are prioritising bank cards over digital forms of ID?
Florence Eshalomi: I do not think it is the case that we are prioritising bank cards over digital. The reality is digital ID only came in a few years ago. For many years we were voting without any form of photographic ID, and elections went very well. We had very low periods of election fraud. I am trying to remember, but I think there were only about four cases of voter impersonation in the past that went to trial, so very low impersonation without the use of photographic evidence.
By introducing bank cards, we are responding to some of the concerns from campaigners, disability groups and other groups. Again, we are trying to increase voter participation. The introduction of UK-only bank cards, being very clear that it has to be a UK-issued bank card, which again go through quite a number of rigorous tests before you can have a physical UK bank card in this country, and having that as a form of permissible ID at the polling station on polling day will help a number of key people in voting. We look at key workers, shift workers, young people who may not have a photographic ID on them but always have their bank cards on them. Again, how do we make sure that more people are ultimately exercising their right to vote as opposed to turning up at the polling station without a photographic ID and being turned away? Thee data shows that in many cases where people turn up without a photographic ID they do not return to the polling station.
Q222 Ashley Dalton: I understand that, because obviously a digital voter ID is not currently being used. We have heard that making digital voter authority certificates available in the run-up to election day would particularly help young voters. Are we looking at making that available? Going back to the banking cards, the Financial Conduct Authority has pointed out that when we are talking particularly about people from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups and ethnic minority communities, they are more likely to be unbanked and not have a bank card, in addition to not having a photographic ID. Is there a risk that introducing bank cards replicates existing inequalities? What are we doing to tackle that wide range of inequalities and look at how we can further develop that digital voter authority certificate that young people particularly are keen to have?
Florence Eshalomi: I think you raise some valid questions and some valid concerns, especially from some of the disadvantaged groups that may be disproportionately impacted by this. The main aim of widening the scope of permissible forms of voter ID is to ensure that legitimate voters are not turned away and that we are capturing more people at the polling station.
Opinions may be different, but the initial voter ID introduction was quite restrictive as a form of policy, and the Government feel that the bank cards are a form of ID held by the majority of electorates. I appreciate the point that you have raised about some people not having access to banks, but we feel that the majority of the population who are eligible to vote and eligible to participate in elections will have a basic form of a current account with a card that can be used as a sensible form of voter ID at the polling station.
It is also recognised in the fact that polling staff, since the introduction of photographic ID, have been challenged at the polling station through no fault of their own. By widening the scope of the range of ID that is permissible at polling stations, hopefully this will defuse some of the intimidation that we have heard reported back from the Association of Electoral Administrators, where hard-working staff are just trying to carry out their function and are being blamed for a policy that they had no say in introducing. Again, going back to a bank card with a named individual, a physical card should be a better way of enfranchising more people to vote.
Q223 Ashley Dalton: Coming back to that digital voter authority certificate—which we know a lot of people were keen on, particularly young people—do we have any idea when they might be available for people to use?
Stuart Ison: Individuals can still apply for the voter authority certificate. The demand for it has not been hugely significant. I have not seen the data on young people showing a particular interest in it. I would be very keen to see that. We have not scrapped it; we have just paused it for the time being, and it is under review. To come back to what the Minister said, what we are trying to do here is to tackle the key 4% that the Electoral Commission has identified as the gap where they do not hold an eligible piece of ID. We need to create new arrangements that balance ensuring that the hard-working staff at polling stations, which the Minister has described, are not overwhelmed by a plethora of new bits of ID that they need to understand. At the same time, we are expanding the range of IDs that people can use in a workable way. I completely accept your points, Ms Dalton, that it will not capture everybody. What we are trying to do is balance that keenness to increase voter turnout and engagement with the democratic process against overwhelming staff at polling stations and making it unworkable. We think this is the right, balanced approach.
Q224 Ashley Dalton: Presumably there is a chain of thought there that says if we can widen the acceptability of stuff that people already have, rather than requiring people to make more and more applications for more and more bits of things, you are more likely to actually widen participation.
Florence Eshalomi: I think a good way of widening that is looking at the fact that, for veterans, they already have a veteran card, and the Government have also pushed for the digital ID card for veterans as a permissible form. Veterans already have that, so instead of asking them to apply for yet another piece of ID to be able to vote—it is about taking a sensible measure and recognising that the digital and online world is ever changing, fast moving and fast paced. How do we ensure that the technology is there to secure and protect any forms of impersonation? I think, on balance, the bank cards will help to capture that small group that were caught out by the introduction of photo ID, and we will also look at other ways of ensuring that people can vote.
Q225 Mr Lee Dillon: I sit here a bit bemused, Minister. You started the answer by saying that there is not a problem, that there has been a handful of—you said four occasions where there has been electoral fraud based on ID. However, you are also downgrading the type of ID required, so it is no longer photographic.
Florence Eshalomi: You can still use photographic ID.
Q226 Mr Lee Dillon: You can, but you are accepting a non-form of photographic ID in a bank card. Why not just scrap all ID needed for elections? Why does Andy Burnham, as the Prime Minister, being a common-sense Prime Minister, not add this into his basket, along with headphones on trains and rogue parking firms? It sounds like a common-sense approach that you could just scrap it.
Florence Eshalomi: It is passed by Government, and it is a case of a lot of people feel that having a form of photographic ID helps. I think we have been very clear.
Q227 Mr Lee Dillon: It does not help the polling staff. It does not encourage people to turn out, because it is another barrier. Your own evidence has said there is not actually an issue to be solved.
Florence Eshalomi: It is, but I think there are other things in the Representation of the People Bill that we should be looking at and focusing on. That is what we will be pursuing.
Q228 Mr Lee Dillon: Not just deleting something so you have more time to focus on it rather than come up with loads of different ways for other types of ID. That would be the clearest headspace, would it not?
Florence Eshalomi: This is a key issue that was raised by campaigners for widening the scope of permissible ID, and that is one of the key things that was on the face of the Bill. We are delivering that.
Q229 Andrew Cooper: I want to clarify. You referred to a requirement that it was a physical bank card.
Florence Eshalomi: A card.
Andrew Cooper: The Bill does not actually require a physical bank card. The Bill refers to a payment card. It does not specify whether it is physical or not. In the Bill, it says, “A document referred to in paragraph 1H that is issued to the holder and produced in digital form is a specified document only if a person can form a reasonable view about whether it is a specified document by means of visual inspection alone”. That would suggest to me that a virtual bank card in your Google Wallet, as long as it showed your name, would meet the requirements specified in the Bill. That is not your view. Your view is that it needs to be a physical bank card. Is that correct?
Florence Eshalomi: That is correct.
Andrew Cooper: Okay.
Q230 Mr Will Forster: Minister, the Government have said that votes at 16 will be in place in time for the start of the next general election. What considerations are you taking into account in setting that start date?
Florence Eshalomi: One of the things we are looking at is how we ensure that we build the foundations of working towards votes at 16. We are still working with the timeframe of having this in place before the next scheduled poll, which again, for obvious reasons I have set out, I do not have the magic date but working on the current Parliament it would be before the summer of 2029.
We are working to make sure that that process is as easy as possible. We are working with the Electoral Commission and the different civic society groups. We are also looking at how we can work on the crucial education and engagement element to prepare young people from the age of 14 upwards, so that they are more involved in the political process, understanding elections in the UK. There is a Democratic Engagement Fund being rolled out across England, which will help different schools, youth groups, civic society groups to engage young people in that civic process. Organisations across the UK will be able to apply for grants for up to £25,000, and projects will run next year from March through to October to help target groups of young people from as young as five years old.
Many of us visit schools in our constituencies, and we see interest in politics and democracy from very young people, and it is always a joy to see young people coming to visit Parliament, sitting in the mock Chamber. That fund has been targeted to engage young people, so that will help us have a process in place to support the Government’s ambition to enfranchise 16 and 17-year-olds by the next general election.
Q231 Mr Will Forster: I have three follow-up questions. Minister, when you were on this Committee we heard from electoral officials who expressed concern that there might not be sufficient time in the run-up to an election to get young people registered. What are the Government doing to tackle that issue to assure the electoral administrators we met?
You have been very careful with your language about a scheduled poll. I think you are quite right to do that, but do we take that as if there was an election this year or early next year, votes at 16 would not happen but if there were a normal election in a four or five-year Parliament, we would have votes at 16? Is that the view?
Finally, if automatic voter registration is not in place when votes at 16 are introduced, what alternative measures do the Government have under consideration or rolled out to tackle this issue?
Florence Eshalomi: On the significant timeframe to get this right, we are rolling out the funding for the Democratic Engagement Fund so that that work can start in earnest. I mentioned that the projects will run from next March right through to October. Again, this is based on the cycle of 2029 in preparing and identifying those young people.
I also mentioned working with other Departments. Working with the Department for Education is very crucial and key to this in identifying, looking at how we raise awareness and how we make sure that we are working with different youth groups. Not all young people will be at school so how do we make sure that we are engaging with them in their relevant settings, working with charities and organisations, and looking at how we can roll out and identify that there is a big campaign around this change coming?
I mentioned that one of the things that we did on this Committee when I was here was the call for evidence. I know that you probably had a session with groups of young people on engaging them. These are key areas where we will be working with them and with the electoral administrators.
On your question about timetabling, these are questions way above my pay grade. I am keen to work on the basis of a five-year parliamentary cycle so that this can come into place before the next general election. We think that based on the current framework and the work going on currently, we have enough time for this to become a reality by the next general election.
On your third question, if this is in place would AVR be in place, as we outlined earlier, AVR would come in after the next general election, because we would need the Electoral Commission and other agencies to confirm which system would be best placed for the UK automatically registering people.
Stuart Ison: Those are really good questions. Building on what the Minister said, we are working very closely with the Department for Education on its review of the curriculum. There is a focus in the curriculum review on adapting the citizenship education that takes place in secondary schools, in particular trying to foster the enthusiasm from young people for democracy and the electoral system.
On the role of electoral administrators, we speak weekly to the Association of Electoral Administrators, and I have a series of stakeholder groups with people who are working on the ground in electoral teams. We will be supporting them through this process. We are used to working very closely with electoral administrators on a range of different policy changes. We have really good forums for making that happen and making sure that we are hearing from them about what is working and what is not working. I am really confident that we can make this work ahead of the roll-out of votes at 16, the extension of the franchise.
Of course you are right that there is a link here, as the Minister said, with improving voter registration and how we move towards automation. We are talking to the Department for Education about how we can support that in central government. Coming back to Mr Cooper’s point earlier, what we really want to do is not just us throwing something over the fence for local authorities to implement. This is about seeing what data we can harness from within central government to support teams and local authorities to make this a reality, both votes at 16 and improving voter registration. There is a lot of work to do, but we have some really good structures to support that work moving forward.
Q232 Mr Will Forster: Thank you both. Minister, you and I and everyone around the table are probably going to be a candidate at the next election. It highlights the challenge that we face that we do not know when the election will be or who the electorate will be, even if there is an election this year. We have no idea, because you cannot rule in or out if 16 or 17-year-olds will be voting. That highlights how much our democracy is up in the air at the moment. Moving to the education side—
Chair: Sorry to interrupt you. The Democratic Engagement Fund that is being rolled out will be given to civil society to carry out. How will that be effectively measured to make sure that by the time it is votes at 16, we have reached as many people as possible?
Also, it was reported in September that potentially the UK Youth Parliament might be scrapped. I know it is on the DCMS. I just feel like that is moving backwards if we are looking to get more people, particularly young people, to vote at 16. I urge the Government to relook at that, so if you can indicate whether that is definitely happening. Sorry to cut you off there.
Stuart Ison: The Democratic Engagement Fund will run a very careful evaluation of how those pilots run. Bids have now come in. We are assessing them at the moment. We expect an average bid to be around the £20,000 to £25,000 mark. It might be slightly bigger or lower, depending on the type of organisation we are dealing with. You are absolutely right, Chair. We are talking to a range of different civil society organisations and others about how these can really make a difference.
Florence Eshalomi: Just adding to that, Chair, with the funding applications that have gone out, we are hoping to target organisations that are supporting young people aged five to 25. We are looking at ethnic minority groups, people who are homeless, regular movers, disabled young people and a range of young people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. We are ensuring that we are targeting some of the most disadvantaged young people, young people who may not feel that voting is for them, young people who are not already involved in the democratic process. The funds and resources are specifically targeted on those groups.
Q233 Chair: What I am worried about is measuring to make sure it is cutting through to those people. I worry about pots of money being given to civil society organisations and we do not know if it is reaching the people who we need to make sure are part of the democratic process. If I am quite frank, trust of politicians is quite low. We have a lot of work to cut through. I worry about how that is being measured in the outputs.
Florence Eshalomi: I think you are quite right, Chair. I just want to reassure the Committee that hopefully no MP will be running any of those projects in turning young people away. A number of those organisations are already trusted by young people, but it is highlighting some new ones that are experts in this field to do that detailed piece of work.
Q234 Mr Will Forster: It was in your manifesto. It was in my manifesto to have votes at 16. We have heard on this Committee that for votes at 16 to be a success, we need additional funding and we need curriculum time to ensure that young people are properly prepared to have that franchise extended. What is MHCLG doing with the Department for Education to ensure that support is rolled out?
Stuart Ison: I will come in on this one. It is a good question. We are very much alive to those challenges. There are a couple of things to highlight. First, we have been talking to the Department for Education—we collectively as a Department—to influence and shape how the curriculum review is being taken forward, which is really important in helping to shape the educational basis for secondary school children.
The second really important thing is that we have begun conversations now with the Electoral Commission about their communications plans to help support this process as well. It is very much the remit of the Electoral Commission to communicate about these types of things with electors for obvious reasons of impartiality and independence. They have some innovative and important plans for their comms, which I think are looking to tie in very much to when votes at 16 have progressed through the Representation of the People Bill. I do not want to put poor Vijay on the spot, but I am sure he would be happy to talk in more detail about this and we would be happy to talk about those plans in due course. They are not quite ready yet, but they will be ready shortly.
Florence Eshalomi: Again, not to talk for colleagues in the Department for Education, but my understanding is that the reform of the curriculum is happening and that assessment will continue in alignment with what we are trying to do in enfranchising young people. That consultation on the proposals in the assessment will come in due course.
Another key area is the citizenship syllabus in the national curriculum, which, as you know, comes in at key stages 3 and 4. It currently covers a range of areas, including democracy, Parliament, voting rights and human rights and expanding the scope of that to look at stuff around media, judiciary and personal financing, in line with some of the changes we are seeing in elections. It is not just a case of, “These are your candidates, you go and vote”. It is about making sure that young people have a broad range of knowledge about how democracy and politics are changing. The review will recommend that all young people are taught citizenship content from an earlier age, a primary age, which I think is really important, and also looking at legislation, media and financial literacy.
Hopefully, once all those changes are in place, our young people will be better equipped and have a better understanding of not just the need to vote but why it is important to be part of civic engagement.
Q235 Mr Will Forster: Minister, you highlighted the engagement funds that you are about to make some decisions on, and they will run from March to October. I assume that no one is thinking that will be enough to ensure that young people are equipped to be able to vote. Is that correct? We know that is not everything; that is a start. Is that right?
Florence Eshalomi: That is a start because that is the theory. In practice, we then need to make sure that once they are equipped with all of that, they actually go out and vote. Hence the work with the civic society and the youth groups is vitally important as well.
Q236 Mr Will Forster: The engagement fund work will run from March to October. Hence I am saying that if there is an early election 16 and 17-year-olds cannot vote, but I assume that engagement programme will not run in every school and it will not run every year. Are we saying that engagement fund is a start but it is not good enough?
Florence Eshalomi: Mr Forster, you will be aware that I do go asking the Treasury for additional funding every so often, but because this is a key area that the Government intend to bring forward, we need that upfront funding. I think it is right that we try to ensure that there is continuous funding basis to continue to engage and educate younger people coming forward, because we know that it is more likely that when people start to vote at an earlier age, they will continue to vote throughout their adulthood. It is important that we are not just doing this for the first cohort of 16 to 17-year-olds but that there is a system in place to continue to improve citizenship education. That will obviously require additional funding in years to come.
Q237 Mr Will Forster: I agree with you. The engagement fund is not there to ensure all young people are equipped to vote when we lower the voting age. When the curriculum, which will change next September, comes into effect, is that meant to ensure that young people are equipped to properly vote and cope with the political challenges we will give them?
Florence Eshalomi: It is a case of you cannot say just one change will equip young people, because in 10 or 15 years the voting system may have changed. In 10 or 15 years, financial donations and caps may have changed. I am just speaking hypothetically. This is an area that will continue to evolve and it is important that we have the flexibility within the curriculum and in the funding keeping pace to equip young people to continue to vote.
Q238 Mr Will Forster: I am mindful of time, so I will ask just one more question. Research shows that only around half of young people feel confident about identifying misinformation online. What steps are the Government taking to increase this proportion? I keep on highlighting that I want votes at 16 but I think we need to equip young people first. What steps are the Government going to take to ensure that young people can identify misinformation before we lower the voter age and before it is implemented?
Florence Eshalomi: The Online Safety Act, which was introduced in the last Parliament, takes us into that area and is enforceable by Ofcom. It is responsible for proportional steps in reducing and highlighting some of the misinformation, illegal information and harmful content currently online, including some of the stuff around AI-generated deep fakes and images. The current legal framework is there to tackle some of that misinformation and that sits within the 2023 Online Safety Act.
I think it is fair to say that we all recognise that the online world continues to change almost daily and it is how we ensure that Governments, not just in this country but Governments of all different political persuasions, Governments across the world, continue to keep up with the pace of that. The online environment continues to change at a rapid pace. We are working with colleagues in DCMS who are responsible for that, and also importantly working with colleagues in the Home Office on the dangerous nature of some of this content. This is something that we will continue to do in responding to those challenges.
However, going back to your main question, as part of the curriculum we will focus on looking at online safety, misinformation, disinformation. I think that is how we continue to feed in any concerns in that area to young people.
Q239 Mr Will Forster: That is helpful. The new curriculum comes in in September. If I said that after one year it would make sense for young people to vote at 16 and 17, having spent a year teaching them and supporting them, do you think that makes sense? Would you think we should have more support for them or less support for them?
Florence Eshalomi: I think it is about continuous support for young people because the online world continues to evolve and change. We cannot legislate our way out of any harm. It is about keeping up and making sure that any policy or regulation we have adapts to some of the changes we will see in the online world.
I mentioned that as one of the members of the Defending Democracy Taskforce, chaired by Minister Dan Jarvis. This is a key area that we will continue to look at, reporting back to Parliament as well. There are many areas where it is important for us to have robust legislation to support some of the framework, but equally have the flexibility in the framework to adapt to some of the changes and threats that, if we are honest, today we are still not aware of, changes and threats that in some cases some of the young people will identify before the policymakers because of the way that online safety works.
However, looking at the bodies that are responsible for this is important. There is the Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit, which looks at this both inside and outside of an election period, bringing together Government Departments, the Electoral Commission, the law enforcement agencies, intelligence services, all monitoring that area to ensure that the curriculum is fit for purpose, to ensure that youth groups or youth settings or non-traditional settings where young people are getting their content and information from. We need to ensure that the social media companies are engaged in this area as well because most of that information will be viewed on their platforms. This is not just a role for Government. It is not just a role for Government saying that we will legislate to change this. It is about making sure that there is flexibility to keep up with the pace and change to ensure that young people and the content they are consuming is of the highest accuracy and if there is any inaccurate information, how that content or misinformation is dealt with and taken down.
Q240 Mr Lee Dillon: Thank you Minister. Where you have finished with Will Forster is a good place for me to pick up, because I want to talk about online disinformation but in the realm of electoral integrity. I appreciate that the Online Safety Bill sits with DCMS but the Government and I think most political parties have identified online disinformation as a real threat to democracy. Why were key election offences not priority 1 offences under that Act?
Florence Eshalomi: I do not know if there is anything you would want to add on that, Stuart.
Mr Lee Dillon: Also on the Online Safety Act, but linking into your comment about Governments across the world, we have had representation that the Online Safety Act should include a duty on social media companies to mitigate risks to electoral integrity and the EU’s Digital Services Act specifically calls that out. Are your Government considering doing something similar to what the EU has done around that Digital Services Act?
Stuart Ison: We will have to take some of these questions back to DCMS. However, it is worth saying a couple of things. First, I know that colleagues in DCMS are looking very carefully at the sets of issues you have just described that order the application of the Online Safety Act, but also new and emerging threats through the social media space. I know they are very alive to those challenges. I will be happy to feed the questions you have asked back to DCMS and respond to the Committee in due course.
A couple of things to build on what the Minister has said in this context. As the Chair will know very well from her time in Government, the Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit plays an important role in helping to support Departments in tackling and monitoring online misinformation and disinformation, the use of deep fakes and the like. It does this in two ways but at a macro level, first bringing together and co-ordinating work across government support, including through the Defending Democracy Taskforce, making sure that we are building and have a consistent and coherent set of approaches across all the relevant agencies that you can imagine. The police, the security agencies, the Home Office, DCMS and so on all have a part to play in this.
Then, importantly, during electoral events the team in the Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit sets up or establishes an election cell, which in real time brings together all of those parties to make sure that where there are particular instances of misinformation and disinformation we are taking a co-ordinated approach across Government to tackle them and speaking to the social media companies and the like. There is a very comprehensive infrastructure within government to tackle these things but we will take back the points that you raised, Mr Dillon.
Q241 Mr Lee Dillon: Thank you for that answer Stuart. The Prime Minister announced the new National Centre for Information Defence. Does some of this end up sitting under that new body when it is formally created and allocated to a ministerial Department?
Chair: The Prime Minister has said that the new centre that he has set up will work collaboratively with the other leaders of the parties. Is that correct?
Stuart Ison: That is my understanding.
Florence Eshalomi: I believe so, yes.
Q242 Chair: How will that work? Do you want to write to me?
Florence Eshalomi: Yes, we can come back to you on that.
Q243 Mr Lee Dillon: My final question now. The Electoral Commission and the Speaker’s Conference have called for section 106 of the 1983 Representation of the People Act to be updated. You referenced the Online Safety Act but the Elections Act is silent on making clear that the offence covers digitally manipulated false statements and deep fakes. What is your view, Minister, on whether that is necessarily specifically called out?
Florence Eshalomi: This is an area that we are discussing with the Electoral Commission, with the chief executive, and it is one of the many on my very long list.
Stuart Ison: Section 106 is one of those areas where we all need to make a judgment about whether or not it actually adds anything to the Government’s armoury in tackling these issues. I do not think that the case has quite been made yet but we are keeping it under review, as the Minister has said, and we will pick up those conversations in due course.
Florence Eshalomi: Another area that I would like to pursue is discussions with some of the big social media platforms that rightly say that they add a lot of value but there are some concerns that many people have raised. I think that a lot of them should be taking a lot more responsibility for the information shared on their respective platforms.
Q244 Mr Lee Dillon: I agree with that, Minister. That is why I was questioning whether you would follow the EU’s Digital Services Act, which targets those companies and makes a requirement for them whereas our Online Safety Act does not. The Electoral Commission and the Speaker’s Conference have called for section 106 to reflect that. While you might be in ongoing conversations, the view is quite clear from the cross-party Speaker’s Conference and the Electoral Commission that change is needed.
Florence Eshalomi: That is something that we will continue to discuss with colleagues in DCMS as well. We all meet at the Defending Democracy Taskforce and I will be sure to raise this feedback from this Committee.
Mr Lee Dillon: While I have the floor, in a month’s time it is Parliament Week from 23 to 29 November and I think that is a great way to engage with younger people as well.
Q245 Chair: I will follow on from Lee’s point. It is good that we have the leadership from the Prime Minister in recognising disinformation and the threats we face, particularly with misinformation, and that he has identified electoral disinformation as one of his priorities. It links with what Lee has mentioned. What are the Government going to do about placing additional requirements on social media platforms to tackle this threat, looking at what other countries are doing, particularly the Five Eyes, to work collaboratively to address this growing threat?
Florence Eshalomi: Those conversations, Chair, continue, making sure that is being addressed at the highest level. Where you see the Prime Minister’s commitment on that is in appointing a Minister with responsibility for AI sitting at the heart of Cabinet now, sharing the areas of misinformation, disinformation, AI and the changes happening at that level. I think that shows that the Government are committed to ensuring that we are doing a deeper dive into this.
On work with social media companies, I know that the Secretary Of State and Ministers in DCMS continue to engage regularly through the Defending Democracy Taskforce. I will be feeding any electoral concerns directly to them, so that they can take this jointly to them. I feel that if there are areas where we need to be a bit firmer, outline any explicit concerns, we will do that jointly as Ministers with responsibility on that. I think it is about being very clear that the Government will legislate in certain areas, but essentially we need the social media companies to also play their part in transparency, access to information, access to blocking harmful content, especially when we are talking about looking at the social media ban for young people. Sadly, we have seen some young people take their own lives and die by suicide because of harmful content.
This is about how to eliminate the risk on the online world and how we also recognise that the online world plays a big role in some of the technological advancements and changes we are seeing now. It is about responsible social media companies working with the UK Government to ensure that our elections are free and fair and free from foreign interference. That is an ongoing discussion and it is something that I will definitely be pushing very hard with colleagues in DCMS and the Home Office.
Q246 Chair: A recommendation was made by the Electoral Commission to address some of this, particularly on standards in public life. I want to explore where the Government’s appetite is on this. It is essentially about recommending social media companies to take more action, particularly when maintaining political advertising libraries. It is something I remember looking at quite a number of years ago and unless we actually mandate social media companies to do it, they are not going to do it on their own back. Do the Government intend to legislate them to do this?
Florence Eshalomi: This is not about saying that all social media companies are bad. There are some that are doing some good work, working with and co-operating with the Government and the Electoral Commission. For example, Meta and Google now have a publicly available and accessible political adverts library where for that transparency you can see where the ads are going. To answer your question, Chair, the Government have no plans to introduce a database at this time, but I think these are ongoing areas that we will continue to discuss with the relevant social media companies.
Q247 Chair: It is about recommending social media companies have an advertising library. I think it is good. Anecdotally, voluntarily some companies are doing this media literacy. We have a massive battle to face because the closest I have seen to people really understanding the risks is “The Wargame” on Sky. I do not know if anyone has seen that. Looking at the data, particularly in Ofcom’s annual survey, so many young people, particularly those people we are looking to target for votes at 16, get most of their information on social media. That is the first point that people go to, so it would be good if the Government could consider putting a media literacy requirement on these platforms. I don’t know where you are in exploring that.
Florence Eshalomi: This is about how we improve on social media literacy in and around elections and outside election times. We are building on the growing up in the online world consultation, looking at expanding support, not just for children but for parents and carers as well. It is important that they are able to recognise some of the risks being posed. This is around some of the new resources on AI safety, which again I know that the Minister will be looking at. It is about continuing these conversations and recognising that they need to happen not just in the classroom, which is a good place to start, but outside as well where young people are getting their information. It is working with the Electoral Commission and other groups to make sure that the media literacy and online safety programme is developed in a way that young people can identify any potential risks and deep fakes.
Q248 Andrew Cooper: My next set of questions are about electoral law, which is complex, voluminous and fragmented. The Electoral Commission has said that there are over 100 pieces of electoral legislation now. There are differences in reporting requirements between different types of elections, a difference in statutory time limits on when you need to do expense returns, for example, between town and parish council elections and borough elections. It is a complete nightmare for agents and electoral administrators.
When we have introduced new elected roles, such as police and crime commissioners and things like that, quite often what previous Governments have done is just copy and paste the 1983 Act, so we end up duplicate legislation on the statute book. Now the Electoral Commission has called for a piece of work to begin the process of consolidating electoral law. Do you accept that that is necessary, and can you commit to it?
Florence Eshalomi: Mr Cooper, my in-tray as the new Minister has been very busy. What I am keen to do in this new role is ensuring that the major manifesto commitments as set up by the Government on votes at 16 and some of the other changes from the back of the independent Rycroft review are enacted as soon as possible. That is one of the key things that I am focusing on.
I think you are correct about the very complicated system we have in UK electoral law, running into millions of pages. If we are honest, a full-scale review and consolidation will take a very long time. It is something that will require major legislation and cross-party support, and an in-depth review. Based on my knowledge of this piece of legislation, I think it may also require more than one Parliament to change electoral law. My ultimate role at the moment is to ensure that the current Representation of the People Bill is in place, that we enfranchise young people before the next general election, and looking at some of the stuff in the Rycroft review before we open the can of worms that is UK electoral law.
Q249 Andrew Cooper: Thank you, Minister. I completely understand that you need to prioritise, and certainly you need to prioritise what is in our manifesto. Do you agree that with 12 pieces of primary legislation and 15 pieces of secondary legislation for the 2026 local elections, that might risk resilience at a time when it is needed most? I also wonder if this is not a piece of work that the Law Commission was made for. Where we have had complex areas like this in other areas that the MHCLG are looking at, in particular around some of the stuff under Minister Pennycook’s purview, he has asked the Law Commission to take it away and come back in a few years with a Bill that can be presented to the Lords. Is this not a prime candidate for that treatment, given that what we are talking about is lots of duplicate legislation that just needs to be consolidated?
Stuart Ison: It is a conversation we have frequently with the Electoral Commission on this particular issue, and so we are very alive to the challenges. I completely take the point about the number of pieces of legislation. What we have tried to do over the course of at least the time that I have been in this post is to make sure that the guidance that is provided to agents and political parties is as clear as possible in helping to guide people through the respective pieces of legislation.
The Minister is completely right. This is an incredibly complex piece of work that would take a great deal of time to take forward. I take your point, Mr Cooper, about the role of the Law Commission. I respectfully say that I think this is an even more complex piece of work that would take many years to take forward. All I can say for now is that we have heard the concerns that people have raised in a number of different areas. We will keep it under very close review, and there is strength to the argument that this should be looked at in due course.
Q250 Andrew Cooper: I would gently caution you against saying it is more complicated than leasehold in the presence of the Law Commissioners working on it. Each to their own domain of expertise.
A final question from me. The previous Government increased the amount that the Electoral Commission could spend on awareness-raising activity following the passage of the Elections Act 2022. We are significantly expanding the franchise by introducing votes at 16. Are you planning on similar measures following the passage of the Representation of the People Bill?
Florence Eshalomi: Yes, we have.
Stuart Ison: We are giving that very careful consideration to exactly the points you just raised.
Chair: Thank you for that. I have some follow-up actions, which I would like you to write to the Committee on. We asked some questions on automatic voter registration, particularly where it has been piloted in Wales. I wanted to know a bit more about what has come out of that and a bit more information about the pilot work that you will be looking to do.
Lewis Cocking and Lee Dillon also discussed the constituency, and if the pilot was done in one borough, how it may impact another borough with the outcome and also the capacity of local authorities. If you could reassure us that this is being looked into, please.
You also said you will take back the questions raised about the Online Safety Act, because some of that work overlaps with DCMS. If you could write to us about that, please.
I am particularly interested in a bit more information about the National Centre for Information, which was announced in September. How will that work and how can we as a Committee play a role in this? I know that Opposition leaders have been invited to this, but if we are going to be scrutinising elements of what MHCLG is doing, it is important that we know what is going on behind the scenes, so we can add to it through the scrutiny work that we are doing.
Also, timescales about some of the stuff that the Electoral Commission is doing, particularly on donations. We know that a piece of work has been given to the Electoral Commission to do on the unregulated and regulated periods. I think you said you would get back to us on timescales in that.
I do not think I have missed anything else. Thank you so much for coming. We are looking forward to seeing you regularly. Is it going to be monthly? Thanks for that.