Tommy Sheppard
Main Page: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)Department Debates - View all Tommy Sheppard's debates with the Cabinet Office
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
Yesterday, the Minister told me that he had received official advice that it would not be possible to bring forward a statutory instrument in advance of the European elections to allow more time for EU citizens to declare their intention on where they wished to vote and that that would not be possible because it would contravene European law. How can that be the case given that other European countries do it differently and that EU law sets no time requirements for registration, and will he publish the advice that he received?
Kevin Foster
EU law makes it clear that we have to supply details of the declarations sufficiently before polling day, which rather conflicts with the Scottish National party idea, suggested a couple of weeks ago, that we could fill in declarations at the polling station. Quite clearly, something cannot be done before polling day if the information is collected on polling day. We were clear that, with the timescales, we followed the legal process that was there from previous European parliamentary elections and complied with all our legal obligations.