Voter ID requirements

That this House expresses deep concern at the failure of the Government’s Voter Authority Certificate (VAC) scheme, introduced as an alternative form of photo voter ID for those who do not hold an accepted form of ID under the Voter ID requirements as per the Election Act 2022, and the potential impact this will have on the May local elections; notes that the Government’s own research estimates about 2.1 million UK citizens do not have an acceptable form of ID; expects that fewer than 80,000 successful applications will have been made for Voter Authority Certificates by the April 25 deadline, representing less than 4 per cent of the number of voters estimated to be impacted; expresses concern that this policy will leave an estimated 2 million citizens unable to exercise their right to vote in future elections; and calls on the Government to scrap or postpone the introduction of the new unnecessary, costly and discriminatory Voter ID requirements.