asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) the total number of residential electors, excluding Service voters, on the recently-published parliamentary registers, the first prepared since before the war from a house-to-house canvass; and the total number of such electors on the 1948 registers;

(2) how many members of the Fighting Forces and their wives, and civil servants abroad and their wives, are now registered as Service voters; and how the figures compare with the estimated number of persons entitled to be so registered.

The provisional return which I will soon present to Parliament, as I stated on 31st October in reply to a Question by the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake), will show the total number of electors on the 1949 register, and the number of Service voters. I regret that it is not practicable to give separate figures for the different categories of Service voters. The number of electors on the Civilian Residence Register for 1948 was 31,122,555 in England and Wales and 865,917 in Northern Ireland. The estimated number of persons over 21 with a Service qualification at about the qualifying date for the 1949 register was some 350,000, excluding wives, for whom no estimate is available.

Could the Home Secretary say whether the total number of people, apart from Service people, on the 1948 register, which was prepared more or less from food cards, is greater or less than the number under the new system, prepared from a house-to-house canvass?

I have that information, if the hon. Gentleman will put a Question down on the matter.

Has the attention of the Home Secretary been called to the overwhelming number of electors in each of the 12 constituencies of Northern Ireland? Is he aware that, were Ulster in Scotland, she would have five more representatives?

If Ulster were in Scotland she would not have a separate Government of her own.