Lisa Smart
MP for Hazel Grove · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“Those warnings have now come to fruition as thousands of retired civil servants have experienced delays or complete failures in pension payments since Capita took over.”
“That, hopefully, will provide further useful clarity for those who may thus far have been confused about what they do and do not have to declare.”
“What the Minister has announced today will close loopholes, but too many will remain. Will she consider exploring the benefits of a cap on donations from UK donors, and year-round spending caps by political parties and candidates? That is the way in which loopholes are truly closed.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The failure of Capita to meet the 30 June deadline is deeply disappointing, but, sadly, not surprising.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of her statement. Just over five months ago, I stood here and asked the Secretary of State to strengthen the Representation of the People Bill by ensuring that post-tax profits, not overall revenue, were used when assessing the eligibility of company donations.”
“Although there are currently some restrictions in place, they do not go far enough—for example, MPs are strictly banned from acting as parliamentary strategists, advisers or consultants, That clearly recognises that having a second job can contradict our role as MPs, but it is not a full solution.”
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“Vijay Rangarajan: There are a couple of areas where we would like to see further work. I have already mentioned company donations—that is crucial. To be clear, our polling shows that while trust in politics in general is quite low, trust in the electoral system is very high, as two of your previous witnesses said. That is important. We would like the “know your donor” provisions to be strengthened. At the moment, to pass them, a political party accepting a donation would need to produce a risk assessment, but it would be good if that had to be public, sent to us or used in such a way that others could judge whether there was a reasonable risk of a party accepting impermissible donations.”
“Q I should declare that I am a member of the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission. You have already answered one of my questions, which was about profit being a better measure than turnover for companies donating, so I will not ask you about that. The Electoral Commission’s press release in response to the publication of the Bill said—I cannot remember the exact phrasing—that the Bill was welcome but that it did not go quite far enough, and that the commission would like to see more measures to tackle issues with where we are in our democracy. Trust in politics is at a very low level, and trust in our democracy is an important element in our democracy remaining legitimate and in our having the trust and faith of the electorate. What more would you like to see the Bill do to rebuild trust in politics?”
“We might also see Parliaments that really do not reflect how voters have voted, and that could do a huge amount of damage to trust in democracy, which is already on a life support machine.”
“Dr Garland: It comes down to the fact that first past the post, as a voting system, is designed for a two-party system. We have moved hugely towards a multi-party system, particularly in the last two years. In that circumstance, when you have many parties in contention, you end up with representatives elected on less than 30% of the vote. Whether you see that as acceptable or not, that is not what a majoritarian system is supposed to do, and it makes it incredibly confusing for voters. If we think to the next general election, people will find it very difficult to know how to make their vote effect the outcome that they want. When you are in a multi-party system, but you are using a two-party voting system, you end up with very chaotic and unpredictable results. That is very bad for voters.”
“Q For the record, Dr Garland and I used to be fellow trustees on a charity for a number of years. [ Interruption. ] No, I do not know every witness, but it is not far off. In page 7 of your written evidence, Dr Garland, you talk about new clause 1, tabled in my name, on the voting system. That is something that affects a number of people, in the context of the changing landscape that you just laid out. We had the most disproportionate election ever in 2024, with a party that got a third of the votes getting two thirds of the seats and pretty much 100% of the power. Will you say a little more and expand on the comments you made about why a voting system change would better reflect the situation in which we find ourselves in 2026 and beyond?”
“Q So the position of the Electoral Reform Society would be that a change to a more proportionate system would better reflect the current situation and would improve trust in politics? Dr Garland: And give more stability and predictability to our electoral outcomes.”
“Despite all the guidance, there are still a significant number of rejections of papers of that are marked with more than one cross: the message that you are voting for up to three or four candidates but that you must do so numerically has not gotten through. It is less so for the other systems. From our perspective, it is about voter education in advance of the election, during the electoral period, and particularly at polling places. That is the place. A good presiding officer makes all the difference by saying, “Are you clear on how you cast your vote competently in this election?””
“I would probably be verging into policy matters if I commented on the various merits of those systems. Suffice it to say, voter confusion—if there has been any—has lessened over the years. That is because there is a great deal more material—mostly from the Electoral Commission but also from returning officers directly—about how to vote and how the system works. Voter education is particularly important when you have divergent systems. As an electoral administrator, I always look to rejected papers as a good guide to confusion. Those have remained consistent in some areas, but not in others—I am thinking of the local government elections, which use a numerical voting system, obviously, as it is single transferable vote.”
“Q There are different voting systems in different parts of the UK, but we all want participation to be as high as possible, and we all want trust in our politics and our electoral system to be as high as possible. Do you have any reflections on the different systems that you operate with for different elections, and on the impact those systems have on trust in politics, participation in politics and keeping confusion to a minimum? Malcolm Burr: That is a big question because we have so many different voting systems in Scotland. We have single transferable vote for local government elections, the mixed system for the Scottish Parliament—the regional lists and constituency MSPs—and, of course, we have the traditional Westminster one Member, one constituency system.”
“We have a system for personation called “photographic ID”, and we do not need another secondary system. If necessary, we can manage any issues or concerns in polling stations by talking to polling agents at that point. Cahir Hughes: Historically, the link was made with polling agents. When photographic ID was introduced, polling agents thought that it was very important that they still had a role to identify personation. I suspect that the legacy issues in Northern Ireland and distrust between parties and communities may have played a part in that. However, as we have discussed, photographic ID is very well established in Northern Ireland, so people are familiar with it. It provides the level of security that you would expect in polling stations. Of course, polling agents will continue to be allowed in the polling station.”
“Q My question is about the calling out process in polling stations, which clause 46 will end. In practice, does calling out still happen in elections, bearing in mind that voter ID has been needed in Northern Irish elections for the last 25 years? Do you see this as being a significant change, or will—as I suspect—everyone involved in elections just roll with this and possibly forget it even happened? David Marshall: This is one of those changes that should probably have been brought in when photographic voter ID was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2002 But frankly, whenever it was brought in, calling out in polling stations was removed in Great Britain as part of the introduction of voter ID there. The Government have seen fit to make it equivalent across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which I very much welcome.”
“For those who come from middle-class families, it is likely that their parents will take them there the first time to vote. For those coming from maybe disadvantaged or disengaged families, it is highly likely that they will not. Lastly, learn from other places. Australia has a wonderful celebration around elections where they have a democracy sausage, which you will have heard of now increasingly. We might not be a nation of sausages, but we are a nation of cakes. Why not think about the democracy bake? Have civil society organisations outside polling stations—turn voting into a celebratory act, so that young people feel that that first experience is positive, and that it is not a threatening environment for them to go to again.”
“Our survey data is already starting to pick up that young people, particularly young men, are increasingly prone to misinformation and to populist ideas. If you do not socialise young people, so that they understand politics before they become enfranchised—whatever the age—it is likely that they will socialise themselves, or will socialise themselves in peer groups that may not be the healthiest in terms of democracy. I would think strongly about the idea of the voter journey, and about things like automatic voter registration, or giving young people voter authority certificates at the age of 16. If they have a national insurance number, why not give them that certificate so that they have the document and do not have to look for it? Walk them through polling booths: get them used to the idea that these are not alien places.”
“In Wales we found a lot of focus, in Government and other programmes, on getting young people to get on the electoral register and to know how to vote, but that did not get them to the ballot box. The principal reason was that they were not educated about political parties—what those parties stood for. This is not to open up the old debate about indoctrination, but young people simply did not know what the political parties stood for—they did not know how to read the manifestos, so they stayed at home. I urge all the parties to move beyond this idea of the fears of indoctrination. The internet age has changed things. You cannot protect young people from political discourse on the internet.”
“Primary school, when young people are socialising and their brains are growing, is proving to be, in all different aspects of growing up, the most important time. There is a stark lack of focus on primary school interventions. Much of what happens focuses on secondary school, when young people are overloaded; they are going through significant change in their lives—biologically, socially and educationally. Stretch the civic journey. Give it time to mature over time. Think about how you support young people after the age of enfranchisement, whether it is 16 or 18. To go back to the Minister’s question, our work in Wales highlighted another thing—the voter journey.”
“The other thing to mention is that a lot of people are really uncertain at the moment about whether they are allowed to engage with democratic institutions as part of their youth work or as schools, because they are worried about issues around impartiality. I would focus on really clear guidance on impartiality, partly so that people feel a lot more comfortable about what they can do. They can do a lot, but lots of people are scared about engaging with their local council or councillor on a local issue because they are worried about political bias. More training and support around that is needed. Andy Mycock: I fully agree with everything that Hattie said. Contact—building a relationship at a very early age—is a critical part of this. By the time you get to secondary school, a lot of that good work is already past its time of efficacy.”
“Harriet Andrews: The biggest thing in terms of trust in democratic institutions is the way that democratic institutions engage with the public, and with young people specifically. We specialise in connecting young people and politicians. We have evidence that we can systematically improve democratic trust, which is a fantastic thing to be able to do—not many people can do that—but that is done through loads and loads of conversations between young people and politicians, and there is not really a substitute for that kind of work. I do not know whether that is the role of this Bill, but it is definitely the role of every Member of Parliament. We also need to think about investment in places such as schools and youth groups, and ask whether they are being supported to engage with democratic institutions.”
“Q I should declare an interest as a director of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. JRRT is one of the biggest funders of the democracy sector, so a number of the witnesses this afternoon will have received grants from JRRT, including the Politics Project and, I think, Dr Mycock, for a research project. I strongly agree that we are in a moment of crisis for our democracy. An awful lot of things that I would have liked to see in the Bill are not there. You talked about the opportunity that this presents. Particularly looking through the lens of trust in politics and participation in our elections, what does your organisation, or you as an academic, believe could have been in the Bill that would have had a positive impact on trust in politics?”
“Political parties, for example, are entitled—and this is correct—to have access to electoral registers so they can reach out to voters, but how parties themselves use the registers is an important question.”
“That is the only one, and I do not think that is a question that automatic voter registration is a problem for. Professor James: I would draw the Committee’s attention to what happens to the electoral register at the moment in terms of, as Paul has set out, the issue of the open register potentially being a security risk, but also who has access to the marked and full registers. There is currently no requirement, as I understand it, for electoral registration officers to keep a record of who requests and uses those records. That could be introduced. The Electoral Commission could then provide a report on exactly who is accessing those registers and for what purposes.”
“We need only think back to Peter Mandelson and what he was doing with his data—giving it to people who he perhaps should not have—to see that we really need to keep a proper grip on what is happening to the data. That would solve most of the civil liberties questions about this. If we make sure that we know exactly what is happening to the data, and if we have a good set of controls over who manages and runs it, and who has access to it, you do not have the problem. The only civil liberties question left is a rather separate one: should people be able to not be registered to vote? However, that is a rather different question beyond the scope of what we are talking about here, because we have decided in this country generally that people should reply to electoral requests and so on.”
“We should be thinking about those things, particularly in an era when electoral interference is a known factor and happens in lots of different ways, and we should be working out the way to make things secure. As I see it, automatic voter registration actually gives us an opportunity to do that, because it means that we need to think about having a properly coherent and secured database. As we do so, we will think, “Who’s going to have access to this? What are they going to be able to do with it?” One issue is that political parties will want access to this data, but they should have to produce a report on what they have done with this data and how, including who they have given it to.”
“When Toby asked me to come into this project, my initial thought was, “I don’t want this, because of the privacy things—I’m a data privacy specialist and that’s what I work on.” However, when I was talking to him, I began to be persuaded by thinking about this as a way to get greater integrity in the database. Privacy is not about hiding information but making sure that the right people get the right information at the right time, and with appropriate permissions and consents. As a result, the first thing we should think about is: what will the database on which people are registered be used for? What functions will it be put to? Who is going to have access to it? What are they going to be able to do with that data? That is something that we should be doing anyway, regardless of whether we are bringing in automatic voter registration.”
“Q Mr Mundell, I refer you to my earlier declaration of interest as a director of JRRT, from which some of the witnesses have received funding for their work, including the two professors on this panel. My question is about automatic voter registration and some of the civil liberties and privacy issues that we should considering as we look at this legislation. Can you help us think through some of the really important questions we should be asking, bearing in mind that, as you rightly say, a lot of the detail will be worked through in secondary legislation? What things should we be thinking about to make sure that we protect the population’s civil liberties and keep privacy where it should be? Professor Bernal: I should outline my perspective from the beginning.”
“At the moment, people are not confident because they perceive—rightly or wrongly—that the rules exist, but that the rules are being broken and nobody cares. As Peter Golds said, it does not require much imagination to see how any of that can be blown up in social media to a result that is very unfortunate for the electoral process. Interestingly, most of the arguments being put forward today are the same as those that would have been put forward in the Public Bill Committee on the Ballot Act 1872, when the secret ballot was introduced. It was introduced to stop all the sort of abuses of the electoral process that had been occurring up to that time. Some 150 years on, we are still trying to deal with it.”
“In quite a lot of countries, every polling station is attended by at least one burly constable who keeps an eye on things and acts as a sort of enforcer, and the great thing is that they do not have any connection with the local authority. The problem with staff at polling stations is that they are all necessarily connected with the local authority, and it is very easy for people to convince themselves that the ruling group—so to speak—on the local authority is conniving so that voters are likely to vote for them. In most cases, it is complete and utter nonsense, but it would greatly strengthen confidence in the voting process to have somebody independent—it does not matter whether it is a policeman or anyone else—at a polling station who is prepared to call out intimidation, family voting or whatever it is.”
“Finally, you have to do something about the intimidation of people going to vote and crowds at polling stations—that is growing and growing. Everybody has the right to walk quietly down a street and into a polling street, and then to pass their vote as they do. I have seen observers from the European Union and the Commonwealth look at British elections, and they are staggered to see mobs of people standing outside polling stations, pushing and shoving. Those are simple things that you could look at, and I believe you would help voters, candidates and, ultimately, yourselves. Richard Mawrey: We are back to the problem of enforcement.”
“We were promised an hour and a half to discuss problems. Three and a half hours later, Home Office officials asked, “Do you want to continue?” because of what women of all political parties were saying to them. This included a female councillor whose husband had given her a purple coat, and she had appeared on television wearing it. A local nutcase said that her husband was a member of the Illuminati and a paedophile, and had gone through her address on Companies House, and published his company address and the fact that he was a school governor. This is a fact of life that can be found. If you look, every council cycle I have ever been involved in—Rallings and Thrasher always talk about this—we get women elected who serve one term, not lots. This persecution must stop.”
“One of my ideas—and I think about this very carefully—is that if a candidate is standing for a political party and they withdraw their nomination, then on nomination day the proposer and seconder, or the registered political party, should have the right to substitute another candidate, so that you do not have somebody trying anything ridiculous. We also have to look at expenditure. There are too many stories that live on the internet of extraordinary issues. You are quite right to look at it, and it needs to be tightened. We have spoken about the secrecy of the ballot. We then come to enforcement and intimidation. I do not know how we protect people. Eighteen months ago, I had an extraordinary day at the Home Office where a group of councillors went. I was the only male councillor there.”
“The address issue is something from 50 years ago—the 1973 Act, which requires your address to be public. I spoke about this on the security of councillors, and had an email exchange with a delightful lady in Leicestershire who had heard me on Leicestershire radio. She had expressed concern for years that she gets a bus to go to work, and at her bus stop were her three local councillors’ names, addresses and phone numbers. She thought this was wrong. This is still part of the Act. When we tried to get security for councillors to protect our addresses, we were told it was very difficult. It should not be that, if you are standing for election, your address has to be public. I think it would be terribly easy to change. I am intrigued by the issue of candidates standing and withdrawing a nomination.”
“Whether it is that or around accessibility, with all of these aspects, the really important thing we have found is that when the council feels supported—both financially and with the infrastructure they need to run elections inside polling stations—you get much better outcomes. All staff really want to do their job well and want to step in and prevent these kinds of things, but if they do not have the funding to have a third member in there, or if they do not have the correct equipment, it becomes a lot more difficult. Councillor Golds: I have a big thing about protecting people, safety and security—and that is everybody. That includes candidates, election staff and the voters themselves. First, I am interested in the nomination process. My belief is that if you are nominated as a candidate, you are nominated as a candidate.”
“In terms of those inconsistencies, the areas in which we see a really positive response when family voting might be going on are those where presiding officers and poll clerks can actively step in and prevent it if they are in a less busy polling station— which obviously becomes a bit of a postcode lottery. It also depends on whether the council has the funding and the staff to have a meet-and-greet or a third person in the polling station whose job is specifically to do that work. Different pieces of election infrastructure are used from council to council, and where polling stations can be set up so that polling booths are separate, that is very helpful in preventing some of these issues.”
“I accept that this might not be the piece of legislation to address those inconsistencies, but can you say more about measures you think would be helpful to ensure that election law is applied fairly to all elections across the whole country? Harry Busz: I would start by taking the family voting point that you specifically addressed. As I mentioned at the beginning, this is something that we saw across more than 100 constituencies at the last general election, and it is something which, as Councillor Golds said, affects all communities. It is a really important issue for lots of different people that we ensure they have the right to a secret ballot.”
“Q Democracy Volunteers has been a grantee of JRRT—there are some witnesses who are not grantees, but not Democracy Volunteers. I am grateful to Councillor Golds for outlining that family voting is not happening in only one community, which is an important point that I hope many people, particularly those who seek to divide our communities and will use any tool they can to do so, will listen to. I have a question for all three of our witnesses. It pulls on a thread all of you have raised: the inconsistency around enforcement—whether that is local authorities, returning officers, presiding officers or different police forces enforcing things in different ways, or election law finally making it through to court should something need to be tried.”
“There is a good case for considering, within reason, how we can move towards a system with year-round regulations, taking into account the importance of a vibrant democracy, such that we do not end up with money being spent and donated during relatively unregulated times.”
“In relation to enforcement, this also comes down to having proper donor declarations and beefing up the section 54A donor declaration to address some of those risks and make sure that the money is not coming via permissible donors in the UK, but from abroad. Dr Power: We also have regulated and unregulated periods at which different levels of scrutiny apply to donations to different regulated entities. Of course, some of those entities are less regulated or unregulated during unregulated periods. As a thought experiment, if I were a malign foreign actor, I would probably focus on the unregulated periods as the times when I could use my money wisely, as it were.”
“That is why we think the lack of any kind of cap whatsoever on how much any one person can put into British politics means that the risk of money entering British politics and getting round these controls is uncontained. We would argue that these measures need to be accompanied by some kind of donations cap. Dr Susan Hawley: It is absolutely a risk. I believe the Rycroft review is looking at whether you make sure that the regulated sector and financial institutions in the UK are playing their role. There would definitely be scope for a joint intelligence unit where they could share transactions that appear suspicious with law enforcement. Obviously, that relates to whether the enforcement set-up is sufficient and whether the laws are sufficient.”
“Duncan Hames: We certainly welcome the valiant efforts that officials in the Minister’s Department have been making to address this issue, and there are some welcome steps, particularly on unincorporated associations, to ensure that they are not used as a back door. However, we do not have any prohibitions in this country on people who are not entitled to vote in this country owning companies that trade here. Therefore, it would be entirely possible for someone who you all agree should not be allowed to donate money in British politics to none the less acquire a company that does that job for them, which would comply with the provisions as currently set out in the Bill. Our view is that, hard as we might try, so long as people are determined to find a way, it is very hard to be absolutely confident that you have shut this door.”
“Q In the interests of full transparency, Transparency International and Spotlight on Corruption are both grantees of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, of which I am a director. You talked about reducing discretion, and there are proposed amendments that would clarify who is no longer a permissible donor. I agree that clarifying some of that would be helpful for political parties. However, may I invite all the witnesses to talk about what is currently in the Bill on money coming in from overseas? The Government have been very clear that they want to take steps to tackle foreign interference, and we are looking at the recommendations from Philip Rycroft’s review. Could you say whether the provisions in the Bill are robust enough to stop foreign money being funnelled through UK entities? If not, what steps would you recommend to tackle that?”
“I am working with the Public Bill Office on an amendment that extends the regulated period. Given the narrow scope of the Bill, that is a way of thinking about that.”
“For example, for a mayoral election, we are in the process of bringing forward legislation to revert that system back to supplementary voting. When it is a broader constituency—a mayoral area that may cover many constituencies—we accept that that voting system is more appropriate. But at this stage, for council wards and parliamentary constituencies, we remain of the view that first past the post is the best system.”
“I am grateful for the interest that you have shown in this particular area, but I can confirm that we are content with the voting system that we currently use in general elections, and we have no plans to establish such a commission. For UK parliamentary elections, we believe that the first-past-the-post system establishes a really strong link between the constituency and the representative. Although it may not be perfect, we believe it is well understood by the electorate and the communities that we represent. When a seat needs to be filled in Parliament or a council, for example, that link between the representative and those they represent is important. First past the post is appropriate for that system. There are occasions for other voting systems for wider electorates, and this Bill will make provision for them.”
“Q I thank the Minister, who has been battling valiantly throughout the day to participate in our proceedings. It is clear from all the evidence we have heard today that all the witnesses welcome a number of the steps in the Bill, but a number of them expressed disappointment that the scope had been written so narrowly and that it does not stand up to the moment of crisis and peril that our democracy faces. If the Government think that first past the post is the right system, why not have a national commission on the voting system to test that thesis? Samantha Dixon: The Government believe that the voting systems that we use to elect our representatives are really at the heart of our democracy; they are of fundamental importance. We welcome views and feedback on how democracy can be improved.”
“It may be that Philip Rycroft comes forward with measures around this, which we will listen to as well as the evidence that we have heard today.”
“For example, if they are taking investment decisions across a particular year, which mean that they are in a non-profit situation but their revenue is still working, they should not be excluded from donating to the political system. That is why the Government’s view is that the test should be revenue, as well as the other tests in place, which we feel are very robust, around UK residency of the persons of particular interest but also the UK headquarters rules and the “know your donor” rules. The raft of measures that we are introducing make it far more difficult, notwithstanding the evidence and views of those we have heard today. We feel that it brings in protections that currently are not there and will protect our electoral system.”
“Q I do not want to test the patience of the Chair by getting into the weeds on my favourite voting system, but other voting systems exist in different parts of the United Kingdom, and we heard from witnesses today that they work perfectly well. My next question is, why is revenue the best measure of whether a company is a fit organisation to be donating to political parties given that we heard from a number of witnesses today that profit or indeed a percentage of tax paid might be a better measure? Samantha Dixon: The view of the Government is that companies that pass all of the other tests and want to donate to a political party may on occasion be in a position where they are not making profit.”
“Q I have one final comment. If Donald Trump took all the assets of his companies, split them between him and his children and moved all the money into his UK-based company, which runs golf courses, there would be billions, or hundreds of millions, of pounds. Given how the legislation is written currently, I think that that company could perfectly legitimately donate to any political party. I would venture to say that the Government do not want that and might think about how legislation could be amended to address that. Samantha Dixon: We have not designed these measures around specific individuals. I am not sure that the hypothetical illustration that you have given would pass the “know your donor” test, but I am happy to come back to you on that point.”
“My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour is making a compelling case for the people of Cheadle to get the railway station they deserve. He mentioned Nathaniel Yates, who is a phenomenal campaigner in our region for accessibility at railway stations, and I visited Bredbury station and Romiley station with him. I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that when we eventually do get Cheadle station, it should be accessible, so that everybody can access it and people get the rail service they deserve.”
“T5. My constituent Simon came to see me about his concerns following his family’s journey through family court arrangement proceedings. He mentioned a Both Parents Matter statistic that has stayed with me: 40% of separated fathers experience suicidal thoughts. What more can the Government do to support parents, and everybody, who goes through family court proceedings?”
“If the number of decisions taken locally or in the regions and the amount of power in those regions increases, does that mean that he expects the number of Ministers needed at a national level to decrease? Liberal Democrats will support measures that make Government work better, but we feel that this Bill expanding the ministerial payroll is a missed opportunity to strengthen ministerial accountability or do anything truly meaningful to rebuild the public trust that has been so badly damaged.”