Speeches by Ali.

“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.”

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

“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…”

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

“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 have made a commitment in our manifesto to make sure that foreign money has no place in UK politics. It is vital to protect our democracy from actors who seek to interfere in our elections. You give that example, and there are threats and there are risks of interference in our democracy. There is quite a lot of work…”

“We have committed in our manifesto to taking action on this. You are right that at the moment the rules are not tight enough. It is up to individual parties to do the due diligence, and some parties do that better than others. The “know your donor” approach is important. Some parties are doing that voluntarily. I know …”

“We will look at these issues in the round. You are right that the current system needs improvement, and we need to tackle some of the underlying issues that you point to. We are very much looking at those issues, working with the Electoral Commission and other relevant parties. We need to draw on the expertise of those…”

“Thank you. First of all, on foreign donations, the law is very clear. It is already pretty clear, notwithstanding the points we discussed earlier, that donations to political parties and other campaigners are illegal, and only those with legitimate interest in UK electoral events can make political donations. It would …”

“We do not have proposals to reduce the spending limit.”

“Do you want to come in on that?”

“You are right, and it is unacceptable that 16,000 people were affected in this way. The Electoral Commission has already, as you know, considered a number of recommendations in its report, including the point that was made about statutory deadlines. We are keen to look at what else can be done to reduce the risk of vot…”

“At the moment we are looking forward to receiving suggestions and proposals. Some of them are coming in already, or have come in already, which we are considering along the way. As Stuart has pointed out, we look forward to updating you once that strategy statement is published.”

“You raise important challenges in relation to overseas voters. It is not straightforward. As you say, the distance from embassies in particular countries means that in some places that might work but in others it will not, depending on the size of a particular country and the dispersal of UK electors in those countries…”

“It is partly geographical as well. I do not know if you have been party to some of those discussions or if you want to add anything, Stuart.”

“The bottom line is that it is not acceptable that 16,000 people were not able to participate because of this issue, and we are determined to do all we can to ensure that lessons are learned and addressed. That is why the Government’s review on improving voter ID is important. We will keep an open mind about what else w…”

“First of all, the situation with voter ID has—I do not believe that there is specific evidence around cases. It is slightly a counterfactual because you could argue that having the ID process has meant that if there were electoral fraud issues, that would have helped to prevent it. That said, I am very aware of some of…”

“I have made the point already about the fact that it is not acceptable that legitimate electors were prevented—the 16,000. Potentially, as you say, it could be more. We are not going to rip up the system. Our focus is on improving the voter ID system so that legitimate voters are not excluded from elections and that th…”

“No, it is not. What we are focused on is improving the system and making sure that we look at what else we can do in relation to voter ID and getting those legitimate voters who were excluded included.”