A BILL to restore voting rights to all British expatriates before next year’s general election has passed its first hurdle, the Daily Telegraph reports.
A date was set for the second reading of the Bill, on March 6, it is thought unlikely that it will be successfully passed into law due to the slim window of time before Parliament is dissolved ahead of the general election in May.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a Conservative MP, raised the matter in the Commons today, urging MPs from all parties to support his efforts to get the current ’15-year rule’ abolished as soon as possible.
The rule blocks Britons overseas from voting in UK elections if they have been out of the country for longer than 15 years.
In his speech, made under the Ten Minute Rule – a procedure that allows MPs to seek the leave of the house to introduce a Bill – Mr Clifton-Brown said the ban on voting affects an estimated one million of the 5.5 million Britons living overseas.
“I believe this to be incredibly unfair and unjustified when the people that have lived abroad for more than 15 years are people that have decided to move to a different country having paid into this country’s system for their whole working life and who still have strong connections to the UK. Why should they, after all of that, be disfranchised from their country of origin?” he asked.
The MP, who represents the Cotswolds constituency, said that the “disappointingly” low number of British overseas citizens who are currently registered to vote – around 32,000 – is not a reason to deny expats their rights.
Mr Clifton-Brown said the 15-year rule is “acting as a real disincentive for people to register and vote” when other measures to encourage registration have been put in place.
Nobody opposed Mr Mr Clifton-Brown’s proposal to bring in his Bill. However, Ten Minute Rule Bills are generally seen as an opportunity for MPs to voice an opinion on a subject or aspect of existing legislation, rather than a serious attempt to get legislation passed.
Such Bills must go through the same set of stages to get passed into law as public Bills, but have less time allocated to them, reducing their chance of success.
If the Bill fails, as expected, the Conservatives have made an election manifesto pledge to restore voting rights to all British citizens if the party wins the next general election.