Clause 2 - Pilot order
European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill
3:45 pm
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for expressing his support for amendment No. 50, which is a crucial amendment for all parties. It was clear from the Second Reading debate that the rolling register was a crucial element in an all-postal ballot. We have had a rolling marked register in some pilot areas but not in others. The experience is that it is better to have one—better for the electorate because it reduces the amount of badgering that they suffer from the political parties and better for the parties because they can more sensibly deploy the people they have to badger people who need badgering rather than those who do not. It is a better way to run an election that takes place over more than one day.
We owe the hon. Member for Chorley a huge debt of gratitude for his contributions to the debate. He mentioned that he had some sort of thermometer device attached to the side of Chorley town hall, which indicated the turnout at any particular moment, rather in the way that churches very often have thermometers to show the progress of their appeal for the church roof. I do not know whether that is a necessary adjunct to a rolling marked register, but it would certainly be a graphic way of illustrating the success or otherwise of the process.