Overseas Electors Bill: Money
Debate between Chloe Smith and Susan Elan JonesTuesday 16th October 2018
(5 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Overseas Electors Bill 2017-19 View all Overseas Electors Bill 2017-19 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Notices of Amendments as at 15 October 2018 - (16 Oct 2018)
Chloe Smith
That is absolutely correct. I am happy to confirm that the intention is to maintain the way in which we currently represent voters who live overseas: they will accrue to the constituency in which they most recently lived.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
I have a related question. Can the Minister confirm that there would be absolutely no way in which such a person could then migrate to another UK constituency?
Chloe Smith
That is correct. The application to register to vote would be tied to the constituency in which the person was last registered or resident. It should not be possible for any individual to say, “Right, I pick that one.”
I have told the House how much it costs to process overseas voters’ applications to register. There are also additional costs, comparatively speaking, associated with overseas electors taking part in polls, and that again is due to things like international postage, where the average cost is again a little higher than it is for domestic voters.