EU Parliament Elections: Denial of Votes Debate
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Hywel Williams
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EU Parliament Elections: Denial of Votes
Hywel Williams Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Kevin Foster
I think that one is probably slightly beyond the scope of this urgent question. I would always say that it is good to have quality of support, if not necessarily quantity, on the Benches with me. The key issue in elections is that we comply with the law, and the law is as it has been set down for previous European elections. A key part of that is making sure that we comply with European law, given that this is not purely a vote in the UK about UK delegation members—it is ultimately an election of the entire European Parliament.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
Listening to the Minister’s initial answer, I wondered, if this was all so good, why did it turn out so badly? The Government claim to have been preparing for “all Brexit eventualities”, yet despite the billions of pounds being set aside, we have still had this blundering democratic deficit. Is there not a real danger that this Government’s reputation for Brexit splits and betrayals will be excelled by an equally deserved reputation for incompetence?
Kevin Foster
The thing I look at is that the turnout rose for the European elections this time. There may be criticisms about how things are handled, but I always look at how many people turned out and engaged, and it was the highest turnout for 20 years.