Speeches by Cocking.

“Will the Minister set out the evidence for her statement that unitary councils perform better?”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“Lewis Cocking, MP for Broxbourne.”

“First, I am not sure any of your solutions are radical enough to try to deal with the scale of the problem. That is just a point. I think you need to go away and think about what more needs to be done. I get that they can take off 1% and all the rest of it, but I have yet to hear anything radical where I think that is …”

“What is the radical solution? By the way, I did not say whether I agree or disagree with any of the solutions or radical solutions. I completely understand that it is a finely balanced act to try to deal with some of this stuff, as you quite rightly pointed out, about free speech. What is a radical solution then, in yo…”

“Sam, you were obviously quoting the 2024 general election, but we have had a significant number of local elections since then. I get frustrated in this space because technology moves on so quickly. Examples of two years ago are out of date, but just happened to miss local elections and just happened last year. We are i…”

“I have a quick follow-up. If there is deep fake material going out against a specific candidate who represents a party in one constituency, obviously voters from across the country could see that and that could affect how they vote in their patch. It does not necessarily have to be related to one of the candidates that…”

“If the Minister reckons that Ministers should not dictate what local government structures should be, will she let areas that have two-tier government, and that want to keep their district councils, keep them? My area does; it wants to keep Conservative-run Broxbourne district council. Why is she mandating that we go t…”

“That is a crazy statement to make.”

“If all the voters who are currently not registered are not automatically registered by 2028, will the next Boundary Commission proposals and review be fair for the next general election?”

“I suspect it is an issue faced by Members across the Chamber, and I completely agree with the hon. Lady. Where the amendments go wrong is that the Government plan to give the regulations to local transport authorities, rather than district councils. At the moment in my area, district councils do parking enforcement. We…”

“To take my constituency of Broxbourne, I have two councils, so two authorities that deal with electoral roll. One of those has automatically registered people and the other one has not. Would that be a fair boundary at the next general election for me to stand in the Broxbourne constituency?”

“I am Lewis Cocking, MP for Broxbourne.”

“I have some questions for you, Tom, about automatic voter registration. We heard today that about 7 million to 8 million people are not currently registered to vote, and some of that may be through choice. I have asked Ministers a number of times around whether they are all going happen at the same time for the same ge…”

“You have to determine whether each of the constituencies are within the 5% threshold across the country. With some voters automatically registered and others not, there will be loads of constituencies out of that variance.”

“My right hon. Friend makes a fantastic point, and she is an excellent campaigner for protecting the green belt in her constituency. The green belt around London was set up after the second world war to protect the periphery from urban sprawl. Just as her constituency is next to a big city, mine is next to London. The G…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I gently say to my fellow Committee member that there are some horrific example of Liberal Democrat-controlled councils building all over the green belt, so this is not something on which he can preach from the sidelines, even though I do have respect for him. It is important that we put this measure in the Bill, becau…”

““It is very difficult to register to vote in the UK”. It is free; it is easy.”

“I do not understand how that can be true if half the voters are automatically registered and the other half are not.”