Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

What a surprising contribution from the hon. Lady—I would have thought that if she believed that, her colleagues in the Scottish Parliament would be advocating it. Instead, we learned recently that Richard Leonard’s keynote policy for Scottish Labour is an NHS pet service.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

5. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of arrangements for voter registration for the forthcoming European parliamentary elections in Scotland.

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)]

I am content that the arrangements are robust. The UK Government have worked to ensure that the “register to vote” website, which has been running since 2014, is secure against malicious attacks and robust enough to manage traffic in line with registration deadlines.

[Martin Whitfield]

If it is robust enough, how come only 288 of the 2,000 non-UK EU citizens in East Lothian have managed to register? Is that really the foundation of the Secretary of State’s democracy?

[David Mundell]

If the hon. Gentleman can bring forward details of any citizens who have tried to register but not succeeded in doing so, I will obviously look at that. There have been many campaigns to encourage people to register, and I particularly commend the Daily Record newspaper for its efforts in that regard.