Electoral Administration Bill

I am amazed by the Minister’s comments. When I looked into the matter in 2004, prior to the last election, I discovered that in the year before the introduction of the new scheme, registration was over 87 per cent. in a ward in my constituency where there were almost exclusively service personnel, and that after the introduction of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 registration had fallen to 42 or 43 per cent. I would be very surprised if that or a similar situation were not replicated right across the United Kingdom, in view of the Government’s own survey, which shows a drop and an appallingly low level of service personnel participation in the election.