Patrick Grady
Main Page: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)Department Debates - View all Patrick Grady's debates with the Cabinet Office
Voter Registration
Patrick Grady Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), I remember the glorious sunny day in September 2014 when hundreds of people queued up outside their local authority offices to hand in their voter registration forms. Were any lessons learned from the surge before the Scottish independence referendum and the 2015 general election? Will the Minister confirm whether there is now capacity to deal with any further surge when the deadline is finally announced? As the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) hinted at, will he also confirm that we are talking about online registration and that the paper registration deadline has passed?
Matthew Hancock
We are absolutely working to ensure capacity to deal with any further surge, but I repeat that last night’s level of demand in such a short period was unprecedented, which is why we had the problems we did.