Elections: Armed Forces

Lord Wills Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Wills]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they are taking to improve the timeliness of the dispatch and return of postal ballots for voters in the Armed Forces.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, building on the work done for the elections held in May 2010 by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, the Government have put in place an initiative to support the participation of members of the Armed Forces serving in Afghanistan who wish to vote in the referendum and elections on 5 May.

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that response about the referendum vote. I hope he will agree that the many service voters who want to vote by post in all elections should be enabled to do so. However, he will recognise that deployment in remote areas, particularly in conflict zones, can create serious problems with achieving the timely dispatch and return of postal votes. Can the Minister tell the House whether his Government have continued the work set in place by the previous Government and agree, with the Front Benches of both the Conservative and the Liberal Democratic parties when they were in opposition, to consult on options for addressing such problems with a view to bringing in any necessary legislation by 2012? If they have not set up such a consultation, why not and when will they do so? If they have been consulting, when did the consultation start and when will they be publishing the results?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, we continue to build on the work initiated by the noble Lord. However, as he recognised, there are no simple solutions to the difficulty of servicemen voting in remote areas in battlefield conditions, et cetera, which is why we continue to advise servicemen to use proxy votes where possible as the most efficient way of being able to vote.