Representation of the People Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:22 pm on 14 February 2000.

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Photo of Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office 5:22, 14 February 2000

Amendments Nos. 17 and 120 and part of Amendment No. 140 are designed to rectify an anomaly. Students now routinely obtain absent votes, even though, strictly speaking, the law does not include attendance at an educational establishment as one of the grounds on which an absent vote may be granted.

We should be doing everything we can to enable this group of electors, particularly young electors, to vote. Allowing students who are studying at an establishment some distance from their parental home to vote by proxy is one way of doing so. I am sure that Members of the Committee will agree that this is something which they should continue to be able to do.

The amendments, therefore, simply allow for attendance at an educational establishment to be included as ground for obtaining a proxy vote. Postal votes will, of course, in future be available to all.

Amendments Nos. 131, 137, 138, 139, 142 and the rest of Amendment No. 140 are purely technical. They are consequential on the decision of the Scottish Parliament that provisions on absent voting in Scottish local elections should be included in the Bill. That is a matter with which we shall deal in more depth when we reach Amendments Nos. 118 and 119. A consequence of this is that references to local government elections in Sections 5 to 9 of the Representation of the People Act 1985 can be repealed as they will apply only to Northern Ireland but not to local elections. I beg to move.