EU Parliament Elections: Denial of Votes

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

One of the handy things of having my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration on the Bench beside me is that I know that there are still more EU citizens coming to this country than leaving. We very much welcome that, given the skills and talents they bring to this country.

The process we follow is similar to the one used in other EU states for UK citizens living abroad. I understand that people have concerns. My big concern would be if turnout had gone down, but in fact turnout went up. One of the biggest threats to European parliamentary elections was the absolutely dismal turnout 20 years ago.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It really does seem that sorry is the hardest word. My constituents have faced all the problems outlined by my hon. Friends, including the situation where the form has been properly filled in but they are still denied the vote—and, of course, denied their vote in their home country, so they are doubly disenfranchised. At the end of these exchanges, could the Minister show some grace on behalf of the Government and apologise not to Opposition Members, but to the people who have been disenfranchised?

[Kevin Foster]

As I touched on earlier, we would expect the Electoral Commission’s review to look at issues with local councils where the form was returned in compliance with the law and then not complied with. The Government would not have dealt with that directly. Election turnout rose compared with previous similar elections, and we hope that this election will not take place again following the UK’s exit from the European Union.