Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Aldous Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The House of Lords will clearly enjoy greater democratic legitimacy if it is wholly or largely elected, but that does not call into question the primacy of this House. Bicameral chambers all round the world manage this relationship perfectly adequately, with two directly elected chambers that have a relationship of subservience between the one and the other. That is precisely what will continue under the reforms that we have proposed.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

T7. Later this week, I shall attend a meeting of Waveney youth council in my constituency. Given the declining proportion of young people voting at recent elections, I would welcome an update to pass on to the youth council on the steps that my right hon. Friend is taking to ensure the early registration of young people and their active engagement in the political process.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We hope that the process of individual electoral registration that we are pressing ahead with, and particularly the practice of comparing existing databases with the electoral register, will enable us to identify voters, old and young, who should be on the register but are not.