Elections: Weekend Voting

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, my first ever awareness of politics was during an election in the early 1950s when we had a fight in my primary school playground about which side one should be on in the election. I have no memory of why we fought and which side we were on, but we did know that something important was going on.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Is not the cost for pupils potentially the loss of 10 days schooling over a school life? Can the Minister tell us how many fee-paying schools are required to close on a Thursday so that the pupils lose that educational opportunity?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is a very fair question. We will clearly have to investigate which public schools we can use for polling stations in the future.