Clause 2 - Pilot order
European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill
4:00 pm
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
Yes. The only relevance of exit polls to the election is that, if the Government wish to persist with subsection (3)(a), they will need to introduce some means of ensuring that the information that pollsters obtain on day one is not published at the end of that day. Otherwise, that knowledge could influence those voting on the second day; it may even cause them to decide that there was no point in bothering to vote. That would be counterproductive. It is a genuine problem, and I would be interested to know whether the Minister has addressed it and, if so, what he suggests we do to ensure that over two days we do not undermine the very things that we want to encourage—better turnout and better democracy.