European Union Referendum Bill

Baroness O'Cathain Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

I am absolutely not making light of it. In fact, I have spoken directly to electoral registration officers within some of the counties where this would have to be done. They recognise that an increase in resource would be needed, but it is not impossible to do. We know where these people are and we would have their names, so the process of identifying them would not be difficult. It would be different from, for example, trying to find British citizens in the EU who are over the age of 15. That would be a difficult process. This is not a difficult process—we know exactly where these people are.

[Baroness O'Cathain (Con)]

Will the noble Baroness please tell me how many people this affected at the time of the Scottish referendum? How many millions, thousands or hundreds were there? How does that compare with the 1.5 million who would have to be included this time?

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

It was not millions in Scotland —there is no question about that—it was thousands, and they were able to do it in the timeframe that they were given. It is important for us to understand that it is possible to do this. We know where these people are. The electoral registration officials have said that this is a possibility, and we should accept their say.

[Baroness O'Cathain]

With the leave of the House, may I pursue this question? The noble Baroness said it was probably thousands. But how many thousands? Was it 99,000, 3,000 or 5,000? I just want to get this straight in my mind.

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

It was proportionately exactly the same as it would be in Britain. There are about 5 million Scottish voters and in the UK there are 60 million voters. The noble Baroness is probably better at maths than I am, but if we know that it is 1.5 million for the UK then we can work out what that would be as a percentage of the 5 million voters in Scotland.