Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of allowing overseas electors to download postal ballot papers and send back their completed ballot.

The Government has no plans to allow electors to download and print their own ballot papers. All ballot papers must be uniformly printed and contain security markings in order to ensure the secrecy of the ballot and to prevent against fraud. It would not be possible to replicate this consistently if ballot papers were printed on home printers.