Speeches by Ali.

“I can attest to that. I know there are a lot of colleagues—particularly, but not just, female colleagues—where video recordings are made. In a number of cases, including in my own experience, that video then gets shared. Hundreds of thousands of people then watch it and that generates more abuse and online harms then c…”

“We do have legislation in place—an undue influence offence that bans any type of intimidatory behaviour aimed at voters. That can be in or outside of polling stations. But the points you raise are well made, because it has happened in a number of constituencies and it grew at this election. It certainly happened in my …”

“Hon. Members have raised a number of issues. That particular point is important, and I have addressed it in other debates in Parliament. I look forward to working with colleagues across parties on the subject we are debating today, as well as on the broader democracy agenda. We will get this work done well only if we w…”

“I want to sum up some of the contributions made by colleagues. I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran, who of course opened the debate, for the points in her speech; to the Chair of the Petitions Committee, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie St…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for introducing the debate, and I congratulate Jeremy Stone on creating the petition, which received such a large number of signatories. It is great to see so many Members join …”

“We have already set out our plans in Parliament, and before the summer recess we will set out a strategy in relation to what we intend to do, including the legislation.”

“I hope that I have already addressed some of those points in my remarks. We are of course looking closely at what further improvements can be made to building regulations. We recognise that the industry needs access to materials that are safe and of sufficient quality. We are setting clear directions for growth for the…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) on securing the debate, and other Members on their excellent contributions. There is a great deal of consensus about the challenges that Members of Parliament face when they are t…”

“I want to address the points that have been made—including the hon. Gentleman’s points, if he will let me continue. The ombudsman will have powers to investigate complaints, to make determinations, including requiring compensation to be paid, and to help to set expectations of scheme members around standards of conduct…”

“We can maybe come back to you, but the important thing is that, to your point about stress testing, resilience and emerging challenges, there is a whole series of issues that we need to take into account—registration and much else. This is an opportunity to get those ideas and inputs now. Perhaps we can come back to yo…”

“Chair, you raise a very important point about the scale of challenge faced by electoral administrators in delivering the general election, but also other elections. We are conscious of the pressures on them. There are also recruitment challenges that vary across the country, and we want to and will work with the sector…”

“That great hurdle; that is right. We are focusing on that.”

“I will turn to Stuart; it is his favourite topic.”

“I appreciate the point of the question, and we recognise that the current system of election law is complex. I know that in some quarters there have been calls to consolidate election law. We appreciate the strong sentiments around that, but simple consolidation would deny the opportunity for us to fix immediate proble…”

“I think we have made our position clear. The focus is about addressing the immediate issues as well as medium-term issues. The strategic review may well come back with further proposals that will take longer but, as Stuart has said, that is a much longer-term piece of work. It is important that we take action now and a…”

“What I am saying is that there will be certain proposals that will require longer. That will have to be taken into account. However, we are focused on ensuring that we have, we hope, a Bill coming—an elections Bill—subject to the Leader of the House providing further updates.”

“You are right, and local government has suffered from funding challenges. This Government have already increased the funding available to local authorities and we will also look closely at what else is needed. We are very conscious, of course, of the pressures and challenges that local councils have faced. In the wider…”

“We are looking into it. I do not know if you want to come in on the specifics.”

“As I mentioned earlier, the role that Government Departments play together, particularly the Department for Education and DCMS, is crucial. Youth Parliaments are important—Mr Speaker hosted the annual event here—as is the engagement of representatives in encouraging young people. More importantly, we are very intereste…”

“You are right, and it is not just now. There has been an ongoing issue around trust in politics, which is work that we all have to do to ensure that we can build trust. In our manifesto we set out that we will take action in relation to political finance, for instance, which is another area where some of the things tha…”