Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

The hon. Gentleman seems to be mostly concerned about publicity in relation to the declaration of results. Rule 45B in clause 7 requires the returning officer to ““make publicly available”” specified information, so that information will be public not only to those at the count—the agents and so forth—but to the media and everybody else. He refers to an increasing trend for people to set out the partial results of elections before the result is declared. He will know that that is an offence. I shall not name the person, but there was a parliamentary candidate—a Member of this House—who did that on Twitter and was suitably chastised. However, I do not think it is a widespread situation that people are publicly making declarations or suggestions about the results of general elections. If they were to do so, that would be an offence.