8. Plaid Cymru Debate: The UK Government's Elections Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:46 pm on 26 January 2022.

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Photo of Sioned Williams Sioned Williams Plaid Cymru 5:46, 26 January 2022

(Translated)

In their contributions to this debate, my fellow Plaid Cymru Members have highlighted concerns that are shared by many organisations, charities and other institutions. The people at most risk of losing their democratic voice as a result of this Bill are those from groups who are already disenfranchised. Yesterday, I spoke in relation to Holocaust Memorial Day about how guarded we must be as politicians and as citizens to safeguard civil rights, particularly in terms of ensuring that legislation doesn't have any sort of disproportionate impact on minorities, an impact that would disadvantage them, which would exclude them from society and silence them, and international evidence proves that steps such as insisting on particular photo ID in order to cast a vote does exactly that. And at a time—thanks to the disgraceful behaviour of the Boris Johnson Government and the numerous scandals—when people's trust in politics is plummeting, we need to empower the voice of electors, not close them out of the democratic system and create more suspicion.

I would like to focus on how the Bill disproportionately impacts on certain groups. LGBTQ+ people are three times more likely than the general population of not having photo ID, with 38 per cent of trans people and 35 per cent of non-binary people saying that they've had problems in getting their ID accepted.