Clause 4 - Electoral commission report
European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill
3:15 pm
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
I support the hon. Member for Surrey Heath in this instance. It is essential that we hear from the local authorities that are involved in the pilot. To reiterate a point that I made briefly in an intervention, if every local authority in a region were consulted, we would not be dealing with huge numbers. The most, if the south-east region were chosen, would be 66. The least, if Yorkshire and Humber were chosen, would be 21. The number of local authorities in most regions falls roughly midway between those two. We are talking about a finite number of responses from the very people who are charged with running the elections. It seems entirely appropriate that the Electoral Commission should take into account the views of all the returning officers who have charge of elections and that it should publish them as part of the report to Parliament on which we base further considerations. By the way, ''Electoral Commission'' is a singular noun and should take a singular verb. That is not down for debate today, but I hope that it will be corrected at a later stage. I support the hon. Member for Surrey Heath and look forward to the Minister's reply.