Mark Tami
Main Page: Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside)
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill relates to electoral fraud and abuse, so I hope that it will receive the Government’s warm support. There is a lot of voter abuse of our electoral system, which undermines our democracy. The Government have undertaken various initiatives to try to build public confidence in the system. They have launched various inquiries, including Sir Eric Pickles’ inquiry, and engaged with the Electoral Commission.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
Would the hon. Gentleman not say that the scandal of the number of people who are not on the register is bigger than the need for measures to keep people off it?
Sir Christopher Chope
The fact that some people do not register when they are entitled to do so is an issue, and everything is being done to try to encourage more people to register. That is the Government’s policy and I certainly support it. If the hon. Gentleman had wished to introduce a Bill to deal with another aspect of our electoral system, he could have done so, but this is a narrow Bill to prohibit people from being registered to vote in parliamentary elections in more than one constituency.
It seems to me that it would be a good idea to tidy up our system. Currently, large numbers of people are registered to vote in UK parliamentary elections in more than one constituency. It is, of course, against the law to vote more than once in a general election, but after the most recent general election, several people bragged that they had voted more than once because they had been able to vote in more than one constituency.