Simon Hoare
MP for North Dorset · Conservative · United Kingdom
“May I take the Secretary of State back to the point he was making about the Irish Government’s legislative progress being in lockstep with that of the UK Government?”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have Guys Marsh prison in my constituency. It provides valued jobs, and I pay tribute to the prison officers who work there. The Minister will know that all of these policies flow from the pressure on spaces in our prison estate.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Irrespective of how we voted in the referendum, I hope the Prime Minister will agree that if one wants to be called a democrat, one has to abide by that decision and make it work, but the Windsor framework illustrates that no deal is ever cast into tablets of stone and that things are capable of sensible evolution.”
House of Commons12 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady is making a principled argument that the House must listen to and respect, but she has spoken about choice and dignity, and the one thing I have never understood about this Bill is the importance of the specific time period—that it would apply to adults who have six months or fewer to live.”
House of Commons11 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way a second time. This is the democratically accountable House; I think we would all agree on that point.”
House of Commons11 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Against a backdrop of realism—things just go wrong, no matter how much money is invested in them, or how up to date they are—does it not seem slightly ludicrous that NATS has put all its eggs in one basket? There is no shadow, back-up or secondary scheme that can be used.”
House of Commons10 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend’s point, I remember hearing a presentation from British American Tobacco, and a point that resonated with me was that there are legal vapes, the ingredients of which we know and are listed, and then there is a huge black market for vapes, principally from China, and nobody knows what the hell is in them. I think an awful lot of parents think that those vapes are just producing steam, and have no idea about their dangerous chemical composition. I think too many teachers and headteachers also thought that, and the learning curve has been steep.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is entirely not what was envisaged, so I support fundamentally the robust approach that the Bill takes to the vaping sector. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to the concerns raised about smuggling. One can make something illegal, prohibit it or narrow access to it, but that does not necessarily, in the first instance, choke off market demand, and people will seek it. There will clearly have to be some robust empowering of His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs agents and others to ensure that we do not see a burgeoning black market in tobacco products. On the hon.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government are not going down that route, so those who are going about a legal business should not be made to feel like criminals or societal pariahs for selling what is still a legal product to those who are legally entitled to purchase it. I disagree almost fundamentally with the assessment of vaping from the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend (Mary Glindon). I have three kids at our local high school, and too many of their cohort have got entrapped into vaping, brought in by the colours, the flavours, the smells, the packaging and the novelty factor. I understand entirely the intention for vaping to be a passport away from tobacco, but for too many, it seems to be an entry to smoking, and then moves them on to tobacco.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Their businesses are very marginal, as the Minister knows and as the Secretary of State recognises, so I am grateful to them for that. The licences that the Bill envisages will be useful for providing a record of who is doing what, where, for the benefit of officialdom in its many guises, but I urge the Government—and local government, if this gets passported down to it—not to see those licences as a cash cow. They should not be a profit centre, and the requirements to secure a licence should not be onerous. The constraints of the Bill are clear. Hon. Members have asked why, if smoking is so bad, we do not just stop sales completely.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As I said in my intervention on the Secretary of State, I welcome the Bill. I was grateful to him and to the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Gorton and Denton (Andrew Gwynne), for a brief conversation we had today about the Government’s intention not to include within the scope of this Bill—or, indeed, in any future consultation—a prohibition on smoking outside a hospitality venue. I entirely take the Secretary of State’s point that it is not just the rural hospitality sector that would be affected, but a number of publicans in my constituency have said to me that it really would be the death knell for their business if smokers were not allowed to have a cigarette and a pint outside the pub, in the designated smoking area.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not know whether they are still made, but it was my job every morning—I obviously had a trustworthy face—to trot up Wyndham Crescent, go round the corner into Severn Road, go into Tony’s, the newsagent, and pick up either 20 or 40. I knew it was going to be a bad day if my headmaster needed two packets of 20. It is amazing that a nine-year-old schoolboy could be given cigarettes, but so trusting was Tony, the newsagent, that we did not have to pay. We did that on Fridays, and there was always 10p left over, which would allow me to have a comic, two packets of crisps or a bag of Chewits. When I say this to my children, who are either in or approaching their teenage years, they look at me with glee but also as though I am talking about a different age, which of course I am. What on earth can we buy for 10p these days?”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley), my late father-in-law was an ENT surgeon, and I well remember talking to him about the devastating impacts that he saw on people’s health and the cost that such terrible and avoidable conditions can have, both to the economy and to the health service. As I mentioned to the Secretary of State, I am no longer asked for proof of ID when I go into shops to buy anything. However, I can well remember that as a young schoolboy —this just goes to show how this country’s relationship with tobacco has changed—the headmaster at my local primary school seemed to be addicted to Piccadilly cigarettes.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am pretty certain that had we known in the past what we know now about the harms of tobacco for so many thousands of our citizens, both societally and in terms of health, Queen Elizabeth would have probably said to the merchant adventurers, “Thank you very much for bringing it over, but please take it back.” It would not have taken root, but it has done. We have moved through a time when medics were paid by the industry to tell us of the beneficial effects of tobacco—for example, the idea that menthol was good for clearing people’s lungs. As we know, the medical profession has very much changed its tune. Rather like the hon.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome this Bill, and I think the country should welcome it and salute the Government for effectively taking on the Bill—they have polished and finessed some elements—that was introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) under the previous Government. The gracious remarks of the Secretary of State in his opening speech will have resonated on the Conservative Benches and been appreciated. A lot has happened in our country’s relationship with tobacco.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Too often, it is interpreted as being paternalistic and patronising, but I like what the Secretary of State said about this approach to lawmaking being in the proud one nation tradition of the Conservative party, because Tories like order, not disorder.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Things have changed. The ultra-libertarian would ask why we force people to wear seatbelts, as people should be free to hurl themselves through their windscreen at speed. Why do we have speed limits? The libertarian would say that we should be absolutely free to drive at whatever speed, irrespective of the conditions. I remember, back at university, hearing an eccentric American—that can sometimes be a tautology—questioning, from the extreme wing of libertarianism, the merits or otherwise of ages of sexual consent. I suggest that all we do, and our inspiration for doing it, is benign and kindly.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman takes me neatly to my closing point. If I understand him correctly, he is making an argument about civil liberties and freedoms. One does not have to be a libertarian to cherish freedom and liberty, as I hope we all do in this House. Libertarianism is the extreme form. It is the difference between liberty regulated and controlled—parametered, if one will—and liberty laissez-faire. It strikes me as rather incongruous for a libertarian to wish to become a lawmaker, because most laws are there to control, prohibit and regulate. It seems masochistic: “I am a free market libertarian, yet I have decided to put myself in the shackles of lawmaking in order to restrict the liberties that I cherish.” The hon. Gentleman makes a serious point, but we have to deal with society as it is, rather than as we might like it to be.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend that it is an entirely Conservative instinct to say, when all the levers have been pulled and buttons pushed—when there has been public information, education and some forms of prohibition—“It has worked up to a point, but not enough and not at the right speed. We will have to do something else.” I accept that not everybody who describes themselves as a Conservative, as my hon. Friend and I both do, will make the same analysis and arrive at the same position as me. I voted for the Bill in its last iteration, and I will vote for it again today, because I think it is the next lever that we need to pull and the next button that we have to push.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A disproportionate amount of resource goes to dealing with smoking-related diseases, illnesses and conditions. We can do something about that. We know full well the negative impact of passive smoking on other people’s health, so the impact of the exercise of that liberty is not limited to the individual. I suggest respectfully that my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) would have a stronger point if it was limited to the individual. Then we could say, “Provide the information and let the individual take the decision.” However, that decision impacts many other people. It affects the productivity of the nation and the national health service, and the health of family and society. I suggest to my hon.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I readily accept that it has a huge intellectual underpinning, but we have had public health campaigns for years on the dangers of smoking tobacco. In some instances, it has worked. We have also used taxation and the pricing mechanism. My late father told my mother that he would give up when cigarettes reached 10 shillings a packet. He eventually gave up when smoking was banned in public buildings and the like. The question that remains is: do we allow unfettered freedom if it harms only the individual who is exercising it, and step in when the exercise of that unfettered freedom has negative impacts on society? The Secretary of State and others have dilated, perfectly correctly, on the impact on demand and supply in the national health service.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. One can nudge, prod, push and exhort as much as one can, but the Bill is probably the final stepping stone in quite a long line of stepping stones to try to wean people off their dependency on tobacco. The House has been generous with its time, as have you with your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker. In closing, I echo and endorse the point made by the Secretary of State and other contributors from the Government Benches: people who have an addiction are not free. They are trapped by their addiction, and that affects many areas of their life. If someone is terribly well off, they can afford the addiction to tobacco, and it will make not a jot or tittle of difference to the household budget or income, or to their standard of life—”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not, I am afraid, because I want to conclude. The disproportionate hammer blow is felt by families who would describe themselves as poor, on low or fixed incomes. When the choice between feeding the addiction and feeding the children comes into play, then feeding the addiction seems to have the trump hand. The Government are right to have picked up the ball and taken the Bill forward. It is an entirely Conservative measure. This is not a restriction of liberty in the abstract. The Bill is about public health. It is about taking the data, extrapolating the facts and recognising the harms, and, as responsible legislators, responding to that to make a difference to all our communities up and down the country.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is not the silver bullet, but given the severity of the situation over the weekend, every little helps. Will the Secretary of State—he will earn huge plaudits if he is able to pull this off—convince the Environment Agency that it would be helpful to many communities in North Dorset, the south-west and elsewhere to increase the capacity of our rivers through a managed programme of dredging? We are losing capacity. Last week I saw a river where two arches of a bridge were entirely silted up. That is losing 20% of capacity. It is not the silver bullet, but capacity improvements would help.”
House of Commons25 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Gentleman’s constituents—and constituents of all Labour Members—are probably asking themselves when the Labour party will crash the glass ceiling of having either a person of colour or a woman lead it.”
House of Commons12 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This timid church mouse of a Bill says, “We will take away some people who we would have taken away more than a quarter of a century ago.” The Paymaster General, who I always consider to be one of the stars of the Treasury Bench and who is a good friend, told us that the principal motivation behind the Bill is for young constituents of Torfaen to say, “Ah, a glass ceiling has been removed,” as if they have sat there thinking, “You know, I would love to get involved in public life, if it wasn’t for this roadblock to my advancement”—namely, the 92 hereditary peers. With the greatest of respect to those on Treasury Bench, I think that a greater percentage of the right hon.”
House of Commons12 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is that what all the intervening years since 1997 and the 14 years of Labour navel-gazing in opposition, as it contemplated its radical programme for government, have produced—removing 92 people who would have been removed in any event had Blair not blinked? No democratisation at all of the House of Lords? What a wasted opportunity.” What a wasted period of opposition that was—something I hope and know that our Front Benchers will not replicate.”
House of Commons12 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will endeavour to be brief. I think that the Bill is to be welcomed. It is many things, but it is not, I fear, what the Government have tried to dress it up as. It is the fulfilment of a manifesto commitment, but one that was made, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) made clear, back in 1997. Blair blinked because my friend Robert Salisbury did what all Cecils have done since their appointment by Queen Elizabeth: he did a bit of deal-making and they found a solution. If you are very quiet and listen, Madam Deputy Speaker, you can hear the voices of Labour radicals of the past muttering to themselves, “Is that it?”
House of Commons12 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My right hon. Friend is a very clever former Treasury Minister and I am not, so perhaps she can help me to reconcile these two statements. In essence, and in true Harold Macmillan phraseology, the Secretary of State told us that farmers have never had it so good, yet his advice is that they will have to learn how to do more with less. I cannot make those two things add up. Can my right hon. Friend?”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman and I shared very similar concerns about the trade deals with Australia and New Zealand. We feared that imports would swamp the market, but fortunately that has not come to pass; it has all been swallowed up by an ever-voracious Chinese and south-east Asian market. New Zealand lamb producers have actually reduced the size of the flock per capita. What we worried about has not come to pass, and we should be grateful for that.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have the rural services delivery grant, and I hope that the Minister and his departmental colleagues are strongly making the case to both the Treasury and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that the rural services delivery grant is vital for enabling rural local government to deliver the services that our communities are looking for. In an earlier contribution to the debate, reference was made to the entirely urban-centric rubric of Environment Agency funding decisions when it comes to flooding. It effectively boils down to how many chimneys benefit from the investment. The larger the community—by definition, the more urban or metropolitan—the more likely they are to be successful in a bid, compared with a scheme that will benefit many hundreds of acres of prime farmland but possibly only 200 or 300 households.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Now is the opportunity—I have been very clear that we had opportunities over the last few years, but they were not delivered for a whole variety of reasons, including covid, Ukraine and other things that we all know about—to have some serious, grown-up thinking about rural-proofing policies, because, as others have mentioned, the delivery of public services in our rural areas is more expensive. Our populations are sparser, and our communities are further flung. As the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) said, we do not have big teaching hospitals and so forth. The Home Office needs to give proper consideration to rural-proofing the funding formula for rural policing, and likewise with the fire service.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It also concerns me that many Labour Members have been told that the money raised will give them an oncology centre in every constituency, and that other wonderful things are going to happen. In fact, this is just a round of drinks when it comes the amount of money that it will generate in taxation for what may be required by the health service or by education, so I say to the House, “Please do not fall for that old chestnut.” The Minister and I worked very closely together on the Agriculture Act 2020 and on trade issues.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am still at a loss as to how farmers are supposed to be rejoicing, as we are told they are by so many Labour Members, with all this record investment and expenditure in rural areas, when they are being told by the Secretary of State that they must do more with less. You can have one or the other, Madam Deputy Speaker, but you cannot have both. Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends have spoken very authoritatively about the taxation changes. I am fundamentally opposed to what the Government are trying to do because of the damage that it will cause, in the long term, in constituencies such as mine and many others—particularly, but not exclusively, in the south-west.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Some 88% of my constituency is hill, wood or farmland. It is the “Vale of Little Dairies”, in Thomas Hardy’s phrase. It is a mosaic of farms, both family-owned and estate and many of them tenanted, punctuated by villages and market towns. I would willingly swap my inbox with that of the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley)—who is no longer in the Chamber—because her constituency, like those of many Labour Members, seems to be full of farmers who are, with a spring in their step, welcoming the wonderful, halcyon field that the Government are offering them. Let me make again a point that I made in an intervention earlier.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The other issue is driving tests. It is very hard to get a driving test in rural areas, which deprives young people of access to work, and to colleges and learning. In this debate on rural affairs, it is not just about the proposals for changing the way farmers are taxed. It is about the whole mosaic and rich tapestry of rural life, of which this Government currently find themselves the custodians. Historically, the Labour party has always been urban-centric, but it now has some rural seats. I hope that the Front Benchers listen to rural Members, hear the concerns that we, too, are hearing, and actually make some progress towards making life in our rural areas a little better.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Property prices go up, and people will only come back as and when they able to inherit something—that is, of course, on the presumption that the Treasury has not taken everything by that point and that the only thing they are able to inherit is a very small part of the family grave plot, although that might be taxed as well. I would urge a ruralisation of this area. I will mention two other things, both of which begin with “d”. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have mentioned dentistry. There have been too many nascent plans for a revival and renaissance of dentistry over the years. For reasons that I cannot understand, none has come to fruition, save for the entirely skewed and bogus funding formula for dentists. All Governments wed themselves to doing something; I just hope that something will be done.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I hope that there is sympathy for that argument on both sides of the House. Many Members have referred to access to housing. A lot of my constituents have invested in rental properties and so on, but we all know that quite a lot of housing in rural areas is older. It could be in a conservation area, it could be listed or it could be thatched—it could be all of those things. People are trying to meet the EPC regulations for rental properties, which is putting huge, artificial and urban-centric pressure on the rural rental housing market. The Prime Minister recently launched a very welcome initiative about skills. Again, I urge that a bespoke channel of work is carved out that looks at how we skill young people in rural areas. We suffer from a young person’s diaspora too often: the elderly retire to an area, and the young move away.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Then we can think about the impact on insurance premiums, which will close businesses and put householders out of the insurance market, with the exception of the scheme that the previous Government introduced. All these things have knock-on effects. I think the Minister and his departmental colleagues have sympathy with the point I want to make. Across Government—it is not just his Department—the funding formula and the rubric that decides where these things go need to have a far more digital, contemporary account of the challenges in delivering services in our rural areas. It is an issue that I have banged on about in this place in the nearly 10 years that I have served my communities of North Dorset, and I will continue to talk about it because that is the right thing to do.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister is seeing silver linings in the clouds hanging over family farms and tenanted farms in North Dorset, but I must confess that I fail to see them. I will give ask the Minister a simple yes or no question: yes or no, will he come to North Dorset to meet farmers in my constituency and explain these wonderful silver linings that he can see in the clouds but none of us on the Opposition Benches can see?”
House of Commons4 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government can no longer just either wring their hands or urge.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“With 90% of the Knesset voting for the Bill yesterday, it is surely naive to suggest that it will not be enacted. Therefore, other preparations need to be made. Despite the strong urgings of the United States, the United Kingdom, the EU and others, the Israeli Parliament voted for the Bill, knowing full well the collective international view of that proposal. Do the Government now realise that the Israeli Government, and indeed Parliament, is effectively diplomatically flying solo when it comes to these issues? If, as we all believe, no other agency can step in at pace and at scale to deliver the aid that is clearly needed, then, as was said by the leader of the SNP—an unlikely bedfellow for me—the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), is this not now verging on the definition of collective punishment?”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), so there will be no change in policy there—one can only presume that a greater percentage of those 3 million will apply for a vote as their knowledge and understanding of their ability to secure one grows.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If all the newly enfranchised overseas voters had registered to vote who were hitherto exempt because of the 15-year cut-off point, who would by definition be seeking a postal vote or a proxy vote, the totality of additional voters coming on to the roll—I am giving this figure from memory—would have been about 3 million. I do not know what percentage of that 3 million got on to the register and had a vote; the Electoral Commission’s report about the operation of the election will be published in November. As sure as eggs are eggs, though, as time goes by—their legitimacy to vote was accepted by my then shadow, the hon.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government and the House need to think about whether and how any changes are to be delivered to the way that postal voting operates, such as through amendments to the Elections Act or statutory instruments, to ensure that the electorate accept the legitimacy of the result. The next general election will not be fought on the same franchise that we had this year. We have an ageing population, so it is a legitimate presumption that there will be a higher demand for postal votes as people get older. There is also the potential to increase the franchise by giving the vote to 16 year olds, which could increase future demand for postal votes, and I understand that proposals may be in train about franchise rights for EU citizens, which would create another demand.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The system was against us.” We have been hugely lucky in this country that all our election results have been beyond challenge and have been accepted by the victor and the defeated, and that the legitimacy of those who have been chosen to govern has been accepted and agreed, but we cannot rest on our laurels. We cannot presume that just because that is how it has always been, that is how it will always be, and that is the spur that prompted me to apply for this Adjournment debate. My message to the Minister is that although 2029 seems a long way away, in governance and organisational terms it is effectively tomorrow.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course, we should also thank the Electoral Commission, which is the guardian watchdog that keeps an eye over all of us to make sure that the rules are adhered to. Our democracy works only when and because the defeated and their supporters—not the victors—accept the result. We saw the dangers of that in the previous American presidential election, and just how close we can get to anarchy and a complete collapse of confidence, the ramifications of which are still being felt in the States, when the people who lose say, “We was robbed.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It would be remiss of me not to thank the Association of Electoral Administrators and all those in local government who keep the electoral register and deal with the paperwork and the logistics, which certainly became more complex and demanding, as the Minister will doubtless have been briefed by her officials, as a result of the changes to the rules and regulations in the Elections Act. I had the great honour of speaking at the annual conference earlier this year—I am sure that the Minister will be invited to do it; if she can, I urge her to—and they are a great bunch of women and men who work tirelessly in our town halls and county halls to make sure that elections are delivered.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I also thank David Gold and his team at the Royal Mail, and all the people at the Royal Mail who strove so hard to deliver the postal votes and all the other literature and documentation that supports the delivery of a general election. David and his team were more than generous with their time and, during the election campaign, as issues were coming to the fore that they were trying to manage and we were trying to raise as the Government, they made themselves available on a daily basis, if necessary, and certainly on a weekly basis to make sure that the ship of state was still afloat.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the House will indulge me for just a moment, I want to put on record one of those things that often do not get noted when Ministers are ushered out of office by the electorate. This place, all of us who have been returned to it, all who stood in the election and represented their party interests across the United Kingdom, and all our electorates owe a debt of thanks to the elections team at the former Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities—I see one or two of them in the Officials Box. The team worked flat out to deliver the policies that came from the Elections Act 2022, and they had the local elections in May and then the general election shortly thereafter. They worked tirelessly to support the delivery of those elections, and I put on record my thanks to them.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What a delectable, delicious prospect we have before us: a two-and-a-half-hour Adjournment debate on postal voting. If the Whips thought that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) made a long speech, I am tempted to say, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!” First, may I welcome the Minister to her place? I assure her from the start that this is not an attack Adjournment debate; it really is designed to be helpful to her and colleagues. I sought to secure this debate having reflected on the operation of postal voting during the general election, which I did through the prism of being the then Minister in charge of elections policy. Just for the record, I note that Mr Speaker has kindly invited me to join the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, and I have accepted.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am tempted to say that this Adjournment debate would not be an Adjournment debate—it would fail the Trade Descriptions Act—unless I gave way to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For what it is worth, having been the Minister over the election period, I would be happy to do anything I can with her—through conversations, et cetera—to ensure that we get this right.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She knows that the system needs to be reliable, robust, easy, seamless and trusted, because all of us, irrespective of party or geography, are united in being motivated by one guiding principle: the result, whatever it may be, has to command authority through the electorate’s trust in it. If it does not—if people can cry foul, say that the system is loaded against them, or that it is too creaky and analogue for a digital age—then faith in our democratic system erodes. When faith erodes, participation is likely to decline; that is when extremes always flourish, and I know that His Majesty’s Government and the Minister will not want that. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Problems were prevalent in Scotland, which gave us a lot of concern because the election coincided with the school holidays there and in Northern Ireland, which created additional pressure for the postal voting system. I look forward, as I am sure that the Minister does, to the Electoral Commission’s report on postal voting, which will be published next month. Something needs to be done to give us all confidence that the result of the general election in 2029—probably—will have the same legitimacy as those held in 2024, 2019 and previously. There will be some challenges. Although our constituents are not forced to vote, they have a legitimate expectation, as part of their contract with the state, that their vote will be counted if it has been cast. I do not have the answers for the Minister. That is her job, not mine.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“David Gold and his team were conscious of the pivotal role that their organisation played in delivering the general election, and always prepared to say so up front. The Electoral Commission noted, in a briefing that I received today in advance of the debate, for which I am grateful, that several people experienced problems in voting by post, such as delays in receiving their postal ballot. Its research shows that the vast majority of postal votes were delivered promptly, and that there were no widespread or systemic issues. However, there were voters in the UK and abroad who could not vote because of the late arrival of postal votes.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗