Good afternoon and welcome. Before we begin, will you please introduce yourselves for the record? Then John will ask the first question. We will start with you, Shaun.

I am Shaun Hipgrave, director of Protect and Prepare in the Home Office, in the Homeland Security Group. I am responsible for the protective security of people in the UK.

Good afternoon. I am Dan Jarvis, the Security Minister. I am also chair of the Defending Democracy Taskforce.

Good afternoon. I am Rushanara Ali, the Minister for Homelessness and Democracy in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

I am Becca Crosier, deputy director for elections strategy in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Thank you and welcome. John, over to you.

Good afternoon and thank you, everybody, for coming to our session. Can you explain how responsibility for protecting MPs, candidates and elections is divided between your Departments and how you ensure co-ordination?

As I mentioned, I am the chair of the Defending Democracy Taskforce. That means that I am responsible for convening Ministers right across Government to ensure that we drive forward a whole-of-Government response to the full range of threats that we face to our democracy. The Defending Democracy Taskforce is now co-ordinating a cross-Government effort to further protect all those who are participating in our political processes, responding to the experiences that we have reflected on from the general election. The Prime Minister has recently renewed that mandate. It is worth making the point that as the Security Minister, I am responsible for assisting and working with the Home Secretary in her duties on the protective security of elected representatives, in which my teams work very closely with the Cabinet Office, the police, the parliamentary security department and other colleagues across Government, including Minister Ali in MHCLG. I do not know whether you want to add anything to that, Mr Hipgrave.

As part of the Security Minister’s portfolio, my responsibility is for the protection of royalty and VIP—royals and Government Ministers who have full protection—and also the policy owner, working alongside the protective security department for the protection of MPs, and now elected officials and elected candidates. With the change from the election last year, we are now funded to support elected officials and those going into local elections.

I cover policy relating to intimidation and harassment of candidates, voters and electoral staff, as well as how intimidation disrupts the free and fair conduct of elections. I also work closely with the Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit—JESP—which sits between MHCLG and the Cabinet Office. JESP co-ordinates the cross-Government response to threats to election security and stands up the election cell during election periods.

Would it be helpful if I clarified the relationship between the DDTF—the Defending Democracy Taskforce—and the Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit? I am afraid I might default to the acronyms because that is a mouthful. JESP exists under the umbrella of the DDTF, and it focuses specifically on elections. DDTF has a broader mandate to look at democracy, and JESP was set up by the DDTF to focus on the strategic risks to the electoral process and the campaign that surrounds it. It is a convening team that focuses on bringing together those around Whitehall—including Shaun’s team, with whom we work very closely—who care about election security and work to reduce the risks around it. They are linked, but they are slightly different things.

Looking back at security in the last general election, what do you think went well that you plan to replicate, and what do you feel could be done better next time?

It would definitely be worth hearing from Mr Hipgrave, who was an integral part of the response in a way that we were not, because we were in opposition over that period. By way of introduction, though, the 2024 general election demonstrated more positively some of the great strengths of our democratic traditions. In its post-poll statement the Electoral Commission found that polling day ran smoothly and that people were able to cast their votes securely—of course, that is to be welcomed. However, it is important to say that the election, as we all know, also saw completely unacceptable harassment and intimidation directed towards candidates, and towards campaigners and electoral staff as well. And let us be clear: that kind of behaviour has absolutely no place in our democracy. It is also worth making the point that although we tend to focus on activity in the electoral cycle, as all Members of this House will know, harassment and intimidation happen not just during election periods. Members of this House and other elected representatives experience that kind of intimidatory behaviour on a daily basis. These are things that we take incredibly seriously as a Government. As I said, we are working across departmental areas of responsibility through the taskforce. It would be useful to get the perspective of Mr Hipgrave, who was an integral part of that operation in the lead into and then the conduct of support during the actual period of the general election.

Prior to the general election we had meetings about the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the community tensions that created protests and unrest in the UK before the elections, and the growing concerns that we had around the upcoming general election, but the MPs were continuing their democratic business. As we came through to the election, the Government back then committed additional funds to support the general election in a way that we had never done before in protective security. As we were going through to that general election, working alongside other Government Departments—especially with JESP, but many other Departments as well—we were having regular weekly meetings on our preparation and response to that intimidation and harassment in the election. I will hand over to MHCLG and JESP next, but for our part, ultimately, we created a fund for a private security capability that allowed all candidates to tap into either event-based security or, in some cases, executive protection. We also worked closely with PSD right up until the election was called, and then all the protective security that Parliament offers was handed over to Government. Through that election period, we continued that protective security process. We have some really good data on what was taken up and the provisions in place. We also worked with policing through our Bridger network, which is now developed, to ensure that all candidates could take up all the offers of protective security, through information provided through JESP, the party leaders and lots of online and one-to-one police-to-candidate seminars and briefings. That is just one part of it. I wonder whether the JESP part could explain what we were doing pre-election.

Thank you. I will bring in Becca to respond to the pre-election question, and then I will come back to the election period.

I will not dwell on the work that we did on other risks to the election, because that is not really the focus of what we are talking about today, but in terms of the personal security of candidates, Shaun has done a great job of explaining the huge amount of work that was done on increasing protective security efforts. The area of main focus for JESP was communication to candidates. There has always been some guidance out there—it is on gov.uk—but it has not historically been very well signposted, so we put a lot of our energy into making sure that all the guidance from the agencies, including the National Cyber Security Centre and the National Protective Security Authority, was in one place and updated. We supported the agencies to produce it in a more accessible format, so there is a video now—a short thing for candidates to watch and really digest the key messages. We did a lot of work with the Electoral Commission, which has by far the best and most appropriate routes into the political parties, to make sure that we were pushing those messages out there, and that all the parties had them and could disseminate them, including via returning officers. MHCLG is very well placed to make those links. I think we did better than in previous years. We know that we reached about 25% of candidates. I would like to see that number go up. There is more to do on candidate engagement. We are trying very hard, but we are not landing our message just yet.

Just to reiterate the points that were made in relation to the number of people, 55% of respondents to the Electoral Commission’s survey reported harassment or intimidation and 13% said they had had serious problems of abuse. That was greater among ethnic minority groups and women. Many of us experienced direct intimidation or harassment on a scale that we had not seen before. In the run-up to the election, a number of candidates and colleagues told me and others the sort of things that had happened. We saw that in press reports: vandalism, graffiti and people outside candidates’ homes. The atmosphere created a very hostile environment in the run-up to the general election. The actual general election then highlighted a wide range of different kinds of abuse and harassment online as well as offline. The online intimidation and abuse then played out in a number of seats directly when people were out campaigning and door knocking and at events. The offline interface—online harassment and abuse spilling over into our streets—was very real; it happened in real time. That led to many of us feeling that we could not conduct our campaigns safely and securely. That said, the Home Office did work, and I am grateful to the previous Ministers involved in providing security for those who needed it during the election campaign.

Minister Ali has summed up the point that I was going to make. Liaising with our ’24 new candidates, it was a very mixed picture. Some were relatively okay—obviously, social media is a different matter—but some were virtually in a war zone. The point I wanted to make is that people were saying to me, “In certain circumstances, the police don’t really grasp what we do.” Clearly, randomly going around and knocking on people’s doors to speak to them is probably not the best advice from a security point of view. The police advice might be, “Well, don’t do that,” but that obviously undermines what we see as our democratic right. The police in certain areas have a bit of a lack of understanding of exactly what being a candidate is all about.

I absolutely agree with you. In previous times, the Bridger network, which you should all recognise, was a police officer who was wearing many hats—not just supporting MPs in their constituency areas. Since the election that has changed. This Government have funded the whole Bridger network to be working on only supporting MPs and now the Ford network, which is supporting elected officials. We still have a way to go—we have been discussing that. We still have to find consistency from all the forces up and down the country. We still have to find consistency on how we investigate complaints of harassment and intimidation. But we have the right foundation with the money to pay for them with every police force. Now we have to work with police chiefs to ensure that the top-down strategic lead and the bottom-up support for MPs are consistent.

I agree with those points. There should be consensus that the intimidation and harassment that people experienced back in July 2024, and in the run-up to the general election, should not be experienced in the future. The overriding mission of the Defending Democracy Taskforce is to ensure that in the future these kinds of electoral events are smoother for all those who are participating in them. If we are not able to achieve that, there is a real risk of a chilling effect on our democracy, where good people, who want to serve in public life—and want to be Members of this House, local councillors, and serve in other roles—decide not to step forward because they see the difficulties of the processes associated with elections. The point about the police is important. They are operationally independent of Ministers and the Government, but there is a very important role for them to play, as there is for the CPS. The police have acknowledged—as a number of candidates and Members of this House have raised with me, and I am sure with Minister Ali as well—that there were issues regarding the consistency of the approach they applied. We will work closely with them on that. Those are matters that we are looking at closely through the prism of the taskforce, but we would be keen to hear what recommendations Mr Speaker’s Conference arrives on at the end of this process.

I have a quick question for Becca about reaching people, particularly candidates. If returning officers had to get everybody’s email addresses, and a data-sharing agreement were in place between them and the Electoral Commission, or them and yourselves, so that you could basically email every single candidate in one go with the information they need, would that help you reach more candidates?

Possibly. Part of the issue we face here is that quite often the returning officer will get the agent’s details, not the candidate’s, because as many of you will know, they are the ones filling in most of the nomination papers. We are looking at how we can use that information better, and how we can potentially design nomination forms better to try to get round some of that. The Electoral Commission has been really helpful in clarifying for returning officers that they can share candidate information with the police for security reasons. That is permissible. But if there is more we can do to try to smooth that road further and go direct, we are keen to look at that.

We may pick that up in a bit more detail later about candidates and who they are. If a general election is called, are we ready for a seamless transfer of our responsibilities as Speaker over to you? Last time we got into a bit of negotiation on who had responsibility. It worked in the end, but hopefully this time that has been pre-planned and is ready whenever the election is called.

Yes.

That is absolutely fantastic. The other problem is that we had other MPs where I had to get involved as Speaker—technically I was not Speaker, but I was still chair of the Commission, and during that time, we had MPs who were suffering really badly, so I had to get involved to use our head of security to get the police to take more responsibility and give more support to those MPs. We know some colleagues who were really getting it bad, but hopefully we will not get in that position this time. That would be helpful. The other thing is to remind the police. Somebody came on my drive during that election, when my wife was on her own. The police response was, “Well, you’d better ring 101 and we’ll take your details, or fill it in online”. I found that quite appalling. I had to get hold of our head of security, and suddenly the police had a chief inspector at my house following up, arresting the man immediately and taking him in, because he had been warned not to come to my house. It was as if there was a disconnect: “Oh, well, if you were still the MP, we would have taken a different view.” That should not be the case. That support should be there for all candidates where that threat is coming across. Hopefully we can get the police to recognise that, even though we might have the title of MP afterwards, this is a collective candidate issue. If there is a security effect, especially on families who are on their own, we should respond in the way we would expect if people were still serving or had been elected. Hopefully that can be taken on board; that would be helpful. We are obviously entering an election period again. Are we sure that Operation Ford is reaching all the candidates? We are told that only 25% are being reached in a general election, and I dread to think what the level will be in local elections, unless you are going to give me some fantastic statistics.

Before we do, could I respond, Mr Speaker, to your point about activity that takes place at either Members’ or candidates’ home addresses? As you know, there have been a number of completely unacceptable incidents where activity has taken place at somebody’s home address. I have written to chief constables, reminding them of the powers that they have available and encouraging them to use all those powers, not just generally in support of Members of this House, but particularly being mindful of the fact that local elections will be taking place on 1 May. It is worth making that point, but I also re-emphasise the work that we are doing through the taskforce in looking very carefully at issues of harassment and intimidation, not least because there are some particular issues with regard to legal thresholds and activity that sits just below what might be identified as illegal. We are looking very carefully at that and want to work closely with the CPS and the police on it. But again, we would be very interested to see what conclusions you draw from this process.

Mr Speaker, could I just say that, as parliamentarians before the election, those of us who were at the forefront of some of the things that you have described were grateful for the work that was done in Parliament? But I am determined, working with Minister Jarvis and other colleagues, to make sure that there are not gaps, because that is where the danger lies. Sadly, we lost two of our colleagues, who were brutally killed, and we cannot afford to miss anything in relation to these issues, so that work has to be done across Parliament and through Parliament working with the key agencies, including the Electoral Commission, of course, and others, to get this right, but it is a big programme of work that we have to undertake to make sure that we provide that safety. The final thing I will say is about local community-based candidates, local councillor candidates, who, as we face local elections, are often at the sharp end of harassment and intimidation. I am really determined, working with colleagues across Government, that we will provide them with the support that they need.

What is the percentage?

The 25% is how many of the general election candidates turned up to the briefing with police that they were all offered. On Operation Ford, I think, Shaun, I am right in saying that all the force elected-official advisers are now in post, reaching out to candidates and working with their returning officers. They will also be offering in-person security briefings once nominations close and we have got the clear list of candidates settled. So that offer remains in place, and the updated guidance is now on gov.uk for everyone to access. We have had some lovely initial feedback from returning officers on some of the force elected-official advisers. What we are doing now is working closely with the Home Office to make sure that all of them are reaching the standards of those very good examples, so we are making sure they have the right support and guidance coming through from their seniors. Shaun, I don’t know whether you want to say any more about that—I am on your turf.

All the force elected-official advisers are in place. At that level of advice and guidance, we have to do a series of things. Not everyone will turn up for the briefings. Some will take the guidance and use that. Some will not want to turn up or read the guidance—we have some evidence of that as well. I think we will be driving consistency from that level. You raise a very good point, because one of the other issues that we have is that, as anecdotal experience shows, while the Bridger and Ford SPOCs will know about electoral and democratic issues, especially the legislation, it will then be referred to a wider police force. If it is overnight, or like your example, the control room will be calling out a dispatch car—or not. We still have a lot of work to do on briefing the wider police force, which actually does the investigations and responds to those calls, on the democratic and electoral processes. As was mentioned earlier, that also applies to the ways of working during an election. MPs will also be supporting their local candidates in this election coming up.

I am sorry Shaun, that does not quite follow. If you have five candidates, the MP does not represent five.

No.

So I think that is a bit of a red herring—we will not go down that line.

Could I ask about call centres for 999 calls, or the other level? Do they have specific training in place during election time? We recently learned, regarding domestic violence, that there is now going to be specific, trained individuals to help avoid people missing what might be an obvious point to some call handlers but not all. That might be something to consider, might it not?

Again, that is somewhere we need to do better. During the general election, guidance and advice were given to all the force control managers on ensuring that anything that was an electoral matter was tagged, so it should have been sent to PLaIT to be recorded as an issue, and responded to in that way. There is still more work to do on that because there are so many call centres and call handlers.

May I take you on to some of the existing powers that you mentioned, Minister Jarvis? We have received evidence about some of the existing provisions in the law that are there to deal with harassment and misinformation during election time, but the evidence that we have received is largely that those things are underused, and I want to see whether that matches your impression. To give you three specifics, section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 makes it an offence to knowingly make or publish “any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct”, but our evidence is that that provision is little enforced. The Elections Act 2022 introduced disqualification orders, although of course they are disqualifications only for those who wish to stand as candidates and do not apply to anybody else. Again, the evidence that we have received is that they are not widely used. Thirdly, we have been told that the “Code Of Recommended Practice On Local Authority Publicity”—ambitiously, you might think—suggests that there is an opportunity for local authorities to correct misinformation at election time, if they see fit to do so. My question is: do you recognise the picture that has been painted for us that these things, although available, are underused? If you do, what can be done about it?

Shall I start off? You are absolutely right that there are existing powers, including more recent powers that were introduced by the previous Government in November 2023, but it will take time to see the impact of the more recent legislation. Whether it is intimidation, harassment or defamation of candidates, for which there are legal provisions, the issue with action being taken comes from the willingness of candidates to take something further. There are a whole set of barriers that can put some candidates off. If there is defamation in the middle of an election campaign, and a lot of us have experienced that, people end up making a judgment call about the cost implications and the diversion of getting into it. There are also other barriers, which are not about the legal powers, but that can put off candidates who are facing harassment, intimidation, defamation or so on. We are particularly interested in learning from this Committee, as well as from some of the other Committees that have heard evidence, about where the gaps are, because we can have beautifully crafted legislation but still have barriers to individuals’ being able to take action. For example, I have cases where canvassers have been harassed and intimidated; the police have been involved, but they were scared to make a statement because, if they did, the people who were harassing and intimidating them would continue to wage a campaign of harassment and intimidation. The same applied to parliamentary candidates during the last election who essentially found themselves not pursuing the prosecution route because the consequence can be even more harassment and intimidation. We are going to need to look carefully at the barriers to action, in terms of the legal provisions, and what else can be done. A whole set of activity is required on prevention, culture change, behaviour and how we operate within our democracy, and that is separate, of course, from the legal powers. We are open to looking at what else we can do, based on the judgment calls made by reviews and inquiries such as this one.

On measuring the usage of some of these tools, you could say that existing criminal law already applies to everyone—you are not allowed to harass anybody, so you can always pursue things through existing criminal offences. But I imagine, and I guess Mr Jarvis will tell me if I am wrong, that there is no recording in the statistics for these offences of those that specifically relate to politicians or elections, so it must be quite hard to work out how often this happens. Do you have a sense that there is under-usage, according to the statistics you keep, so that we can work out whether, for whatever reason, people are using the tools that are currently available?

We will check the specific point you make about recording. In more general terms, that is a very good and constructive challenge. We will look very carefully at the examples that you have laid out. Minister Ali gave a very comprehensive response, and there is not much that I can add, other than to say, in response to the question about whether there are improvements or changes that should be made to the law, the answer is yes. I am sure there are areas that require refinement and improvement, and I completely agree with Minister Ali’s point about looking to find out where the gaps are. That process is under way across Government, in the review that we are conducting, and we are looking very carefully at where those gaps might be. Frankly, this is where Mr Speaker’s Conference can add a lot of value, in terms of your analysis, where your experience leads you to think the gaps are and what improvements can be made. I hope we can continue to have that conversation, because we are both doing bits of work, and we need to make sure we are consistent and coherent. Please be assured of the willingness across Government to take decisive, meaningful and fairly rapid action on this, because we accept that we have a big responsibility to ensure that, the next time we go into a general election, we can satisfy ourselves that the electoral law surrounding the process is as up to date as it possibly can be, is fit for purpose and means that all candidates can go into the process safe in the knowledge that they are going to be properly protected by the legal framework around the process.

I am really bothered about time, because we have a lot of questions to get through.

Do the Ministers think that one of the barriers might be that candidates actually are not aware of what is available to them and of the fact that this is a crime? Could more be done to make that clear to candidates when they are running, and also that it applies to people’s behaviour towards their rival candidates? Just getting this out there, so that people are aware of it, might help. I have previously raised things like this, and you tend to be told just to let it go. I had not realised that this is technically a crime and, therefore, if you report it, the police have an obligation to act on it.

You are absolutely right. There is a lot that can be done around making sure that everyone—especially new candidates; we have a lot of brilliant young candidates coming into local council elections as well as in the recent election—is on a level playing field in terms of knowing their responsibilities, rights and expectations as candidates, and around ensuring the legal provisions are very clear. I think more awareness in terms of public awareness, and creating a culture within which we operate as a democracy, is really important. More broadly, we are looking as a Government to introduce a voting age of 16-17, and so there is a big agenda there around making sure we create a healthy, positive environment, within which people can have strongly held views but cannot stray into the sort of hostile action, harassment and intimidation we have seen, which will be damaging to our democracy. You are absolutely right about that.

We have talked about candidates and canvassers. I remember a certain by-election where it was also the people you were speaking to who were being intimidated, with people following and then going to their doors and clearly delivering a message. I know that is a massive area of people, but I think this whole thing is moving on, and some of it I find very sinister.

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 come into it. We have to take action, and that is what we are doing through the taskforce, working across Government to look at how we address those issues as well.

Very briefly, I completely agree with the point you have made. There is an absolute commitment from Government to raise awareness. It is no critique of the previous Prime Minister to say that the general election was called earlier than most people expected. While I am not able to confirm the precise sequencing of the next general election, it might be the case that there is a longer lead time into that process. That would provide more opportunity to make sure that every candidate who participates is aware of the legal framework and of the support that is available to them.

We have all experienced election day—some of us quite successfully, on occasion. There is an issue though now where these have changed. Historically the established parties have known what they do and their framework for it. They have done their canvassing, distributed their leaflets and probably have records of who they think is going vote for them. They may put people on the polling station taking numbers, checking, in a reasonable way, often chatting to each other as representatives from the party. That is all fine. The general rule is that parties do not have representatives in the polling station itself; they are outside. That has changed a bit, often with less formal campaigns. We have experienced examples where polling days have become almost like a football match in some ways, with dozens of people outside polling stations, shouting and jeering not merely at other parties, but at voters coming in. When that happened at an election in Sheffield—not the general election—the chief executive and the appointed police officer were helpful and they went out, but the response back was that there is no absolute clarity about what is allowable outside a polling station and what is not. When does trying to encourage people to support a candidate become intimidation? When does persuasion become pressure? At what distance should people be from a polling station? How many people should be allowed outside? Are chanting and shouting or loudspeakers allowed? Should people be holding up banners that people have to walk past to get to the station? What is allowed and what is not? There is no definition, is there? Should there be one?

There is, actually. There are rules that say you cannot put up banners or do things within a polling station. I have forgotten how far it is—500 yards or whatever—but there are restrictions.

Within polling stations, yes, but I am not sure about outside.

The big question is, who enforces it?

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 constituency at a number of polling stations, in the way that you describe. I absolutely appreciate the point you are making. One question is whether we could do more to advise and provide guidance, working with the Home Office, to those on the frontline so that police officers who are there—in certain constituencies there are police officers in polling stations; that has been the case in my borough in various elections, including the general election of 2024—have the appropriate guidance and advice on how to interpret the legislation and then do the enforcement. It also affects the space and the proximity within which, as you say, people are standing next to candidates. Women find it particularly intimidating, and candidates certainly do. There are risks and downsides to having a cordon away from the polling station, because it takes the takes crowds further away but does not remove the problem. We are very open to looking at different options and approaches, including improving guidance and advice, working with electoral officials. We have had a number of conferences. I was at the electoral administrators conference with hundreds of administrators recently, looking at how we can support them as well, because it is really difficult for them in those circumstances.

The electoral administrators have given us evidence about their concerns. They say it is not clear what is allowed and what is not allowed. You are right, if there is a dedicated police officer who has been properly briefed, but otherwise, if you have got a police officer—or a returning officer or chief executive or someone else—being asked to make a decision, they need clear guidance. I do not know where the guidance is. I do not think the guidance is there with the clarity that is needed.

On the police presence—this does not answer the guidance question, which I think is a really valid one—at the last election, a local community fund was provided, into which all police forces could bid for polling day. Actually, it was pre-polling day as well, and it has been used since. So there was an opportunity for police—not for every polling station, because there are thousands of them, which is more than we could police—to have more roving patrols and have presence at more polling stations on the day. In the upcoming local elections, the police will also have the responsibility to ensure that they are policed. The guidance bit is a really good point, because it is great having police officers in vehicles, but what they do when they get there is the next important thing.

Exactly. So there is going to be a serious look now at clearer guidance for what happens on polling day and what is allowed and what is not allowed.

I would very much like to see that. What further support we can provide is one of the things we will be looking at. You have got young officers—during an election period it is a really delicate balance, isn’t it? We have all seen that if there is not proper advice and guidance and clarity on enforcement for those who are on the ground, then that can leave a lot to be desired. I am very keen that we work on those issues, and we would be very interested to look at any further recommendations or suggestions that this Conference makes.

I have one final question before I move on to the issue of what information candidates provide. If things got so serious on election day that you got widespread intimidation—even at just one polling station—and, despite the best efforts of the police and the returning officer, it was not dissipated and dealt with, should the returning officer have the right to temporarily, or permanently for that day, suspend the election?

There is a provision in law now that allows the suspension of polling in the case of open riot. How “open riot” is defined is a bit of an open question. It is electoral law; this is quite old stuff. We would want to have a look at that because it is not a very helpful provision. I believe it has been used once, and slightly erroneously, to deal with people setting fire to dustbins in Wakefield—that may not have been precisely what it was drafted for. But that goes to illustrate that perhaps the law is a little outdated. It does exist and could be used, but your point about guidance is well made. This is something we would want to talk to the Electoral Commission about because it will have a role to play, alongside giving clearer guidance to police.

Going back to the information that candidates are asked to provide, candidates do not have to give their address on the ballot paper, but can if they choose to. Is it really sensible to ask candidates to provide that? Some of the worry is that if one candidate gives their address and says, “We live there”, and somebody else says, “We live in the general area”, people will think, “Oh, they’re not local.” So there is pressure to give addresses, which probably is not always the best.

The Deputy Prime Minister has made a commitment to remove the requirement for councillors’ home addresses to be published in the register of interests, which is an issue. As you point out, candidates can leave their address out. However, there is an issue with independent candidates acting as their own election agents without an office. We are looking at all those points because the security concerns about home addresses being made available are well made.

On the other hand, apart from having or not having to give that information, candidates are not required to produce any information to say who they are. John Smith—that is the obvious one, but it could be Jean Smith—comes along, says, “This is who I am,” and gives the required nomination papers with the proposers and seconders on them, but that is all they have to do. The returning officer does not have to check that any of that information is accurate. All they have to accept is a statement from the candidate that it is. The person being nominated as a candidate could be someone with ill intent who wants to get on the ballot paper so that they have a right to go to the count and disrupt it. Should we not be a bit more careful about checking through that information at the point of nomination?

You make a very important point. We are aware of issues experienced by some returning officers relating to nominations at the last general election. Most political parties play a very active role in candidate vetting, and so on, but there are issues with new entrants who do not have that party structure. We will consider those issues and, if recommendations come from this Conference, we will of course look at those.

We expect a voter to prove who they are by formal identification; otherwise, they cannot vote. What we say to a candidate is, “You can say who you are and what your address is, but there is no check or requirement to prove identity.” Surely that cannot be correct.

You are spot on, Mr Speaker, that where there are gaps, we need to look into them and make sure that they are addressed. As I say, we are aware of certain issues that came up in the last general election. We would be very keen to look at what more can be done.

Surely, if we expect somebody to prove their identity to vote, it should not be that hard to expect the person who is standing to prove they are who they say they are, that their address is accurate, and that they are qualified to stand in the election. At the moment there is no such requirement, and the returning officer cannot check even if they think there has been misinformation. I have a quick example of that, which could happen to any of you. Somebody stood against me and allegedly changed their name—I will use a different name for the example—to “John Brexit Edwards”. They put “Brexit” in their name in order to get votes because there was no Brexit candidate. They said that they had done that by changing their name, and that straight afterwards they changed it back. Do we really believe that happened? At the last election there were also allegations that some people were giving a different name from their true identity, and a different address, in order to say that they qualified as a local person even though they might have been living somewhere else in the country. That is false information, but even if you think it is wrong, nobody will look at or investigate it. Surely, that is a major flaw, which needs to be addressed immediately.

As you were speaking, Mr Speaker, I remembered somebody who changed their name to Rowshan Ali so that they could be No. 1 on the ballot paper, above me, so I feel your pain.

It is not my pain; it is misleading the electors who are going to vote.

Absolutely. We will absolutely look at this. You make a very important point about the checks and changes that have been made, in terms of voter ID. We have to get the balance right. Obviously, parties have a responsibility, in terms of the ID checks—

It is not the responsibility of the party I am worried about.

Your point is well made, and we will certainly look at the Conference’s recommendations.

Somebody from overseas could register and give a name and address that we accept, but have no eligibility to stand anywhere in the country. To me, it is a bigger issue that does not seem to have been taken on.

Thank you to our witnesses. You are speaking with real passion and giving vivid testimony, which shows you do care about this stuff. I want to ask about legal protection of MPs and candidates. We received evidence from Detective Inspector Barnard of PLaIT, and he said that there are cases in which incidents are at a “sub-criminal threshold”, where communications are malicious but not quite malicious enough for the Online Safety Act. We have all had such communications online; I have had voicemails as well. PLaIT is saying that we could use legislation or, as a softer approach, community protection warnings—ASBO-type measures. I guess this is a question for the Home Office. What assessment has your Department made of the potential to use antisocial behaviour legislation to deal with incidents of abuse that are harmful but do not quite reach a criminal threshold?

To answer a previous question, PLaIT holds all the data. All reported harassment, intimidation and other offences against MPs should be recorded by PLaIT and the prosecution should be followed up, so it should hold conviction information from last year’s election, although it is still too early to get really good data. There is absolutely an operational policing line that it sees as a threshold line. There is quite often disagreement on where that threshold line is, where it should take something forward, and where it recommends that the victim of the harassment or intimidation should do something about it. That line has varied over time, from pretty rubbish advice like, “Contact the social media company yourself, and try to do something about it,” to, “Here are some personal protection security steps you could take.” I have not heard of any antisocial behaviour orders being issued for this kind of intimidation, but I do not know if others on the panel have other experience.

I will add a couple of points. We have already discussed thresholds and we are looking very carefully at them as part of the taskforce. We have addressed the point about the consistency of the police response. There are also some issues around evidence gathering. Speaking in my capacity as a local Member of Parliament, where I encounter this kind of activity, I am incredibly careful that my team and I capture and document it so that we are able to hand over to the police a very complete record of what has occurred. I have encountered other colleagues who have seen things that are deeply unpleasant but possibly do not reach the criminal threshold, and, for entirely understandable reasons, they have deleted that material because they do not want to engage with it or see it. Ultimately, people will have to make their own decisions about how to proceed. The way I proceed at a local level is to capture very carefully all that evidence and activity, and hand it over to the police so that they can take meaningful action on the back of it.

I just want to add something about the other social media outlets. WhatsApp gets used; it is very personal, with trusted circles. Videos can be made of threatening, intimidating behaviour. We saw a lot of that in the general election. Some of that behaviour clearly passes the criminal threshold. It can be very difficult for people and it can terrorise communities. It can suppress voters and generate an incredibly fearful environment. The online piece and the way it plays out in real terms is a serious issue, and that is where the work across Government will be important. Obviously, we have to balance freedom of speech with protection, and the two have to be constantly tested to make sure we get the balance right. That will be the focus and we have to test against that. We are determined that people will not be put off entering politics, which is a real concern because of this sort of culture.

We will go back and check whether there have been any criminal behaviour orders or civil injunctions taken by MPs. If there is any evidence of how many and how successful they have been, we will come back to you.

Just quickly on your threshold, which worries me, for how you charge people who interfere with elections, and with Members of Parliament and elected officials right across the board: have you thought about using the Terrorism Act to deal with these issues?

Not currently, no.

Perhaps that is something you can take away. You could use protection and something more powerful, rather than the Public Order Act, which does not quite reflect the significance of what democracy is about. I will leave it at that.

I have a question for the Home Office. We have had quite a bit of evidence suggesting that a more centralised police approach to tackling harassment, abuse and intimidation could improve the consistency of the response. We have had evidence to suggest that MPs have received different responses, even just among the Committee members. What scope is there to set up a more centralised response to this kind of crime?

There is a National Police Chiefs’ Council lead who works in counter-terrorism police; he is the senior responsible person for MPs’ protection and all the election protection. He has been in post since just before the election. We have funded directly the Bridger network and the Ford network, and I think the Minister talked about the letter he has recently sent to the chiefs. We are in the foothills of work to create that consistency right across policing. There is no doubt that more needs to be done. We need to do it top-down from chief officer level, with the support of the Government, and definitely at the Bridger and tactical response level going upwards.

In the guidance for force control rooms, that advice is given out. Again, we need more work to make sure they have that muscle memory, and so that all control rooms understand that. When an election is called and we go into the electoral phase, security hands over from Parliament to the Government. Our responsibility is the protection of all candidates, not just MPs. That is provided in the guidance, advice and information that we share through JESP, the Electoral Commission and party leaders. The responsibility is for all 4,500 candidates, in last year’s case.

I am afraid we have to end the session here; I have kept you slightly longer than expected. Thank you for speaking to us today. The secretariat will be in touch. If there is anything we need to follow up on, or if you wish to share any additional thoughts or reflections, please send them in writing. We have one or two questions that we did not get to, but I really appreciate you coming. If we can follow up with each other, that will be very helpful.