Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Fiji has been suspended from the Commonwealth, and the usual practice is that in such cases we do not take steps to remove the right of qualifying citizens from those countries to vote in our elections. It is worth saying that the right of Commonwealth citizens to register to vote is restricted in electoral law to qualifying Commonwealth citizens—those who do not require leave to enter or remain under the immigration legislation, or those who do require leave but have it. I say that because my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills suggested that in some constituencies significant numbers of illegal immigrants had managed to get themselves on to the electoral register and that there was no duty on electoral registration officers to do anything about that. But that is not the case. Electoral registration officers have a duty to maintain an accurate and complete register and to inquire whether people are eligible to be—