Part of Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill - Third Reading – in the House of Lords at 10:05 am on 24 October 2025.
Lord Rennard
Liberal Democrat
10:05,
24 October 2025
Before the Minister sits down, I note that I agree with some of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, if not all of them. He makes some good points about the different gaps in and problems within our election Laws. In our Second Reading and Committee debates, many of us across the House spoke about the need to consolidate properly all election laws.
We recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, has done extremely well in bringing this Bill forward— I shall call it a small, tidying-up measure. It is still a very important principle that people in Scotland and Wales can apply online to vote as absent voters; that should probably have been done in 2022, without needing a Private Member’s Bill. We frequently have debates in which the expertise in this House highlights the need, as the law commissions keep emphasising, for proper consolidation of election laws, bringing together the legislation of 2000 and the old legislation of the Representation of the People Act. Can the Minister say a bit more about the Government’s intention regarding consolidating election law in general?
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