HC Deb 05 October 1944 vol 403 cc1115-6
25. Mr. Hugh Lawson

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make enquiries of all, or of a sufficient sample of, constituency returning officers so as to enable him to say, approximately, what is the relation between the number of registration forms received from the three fighting services and the number of men and women eligible to register in these three services.

Mr. H. Morrison

As I said in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Sir R. Acland) on 3rd August, I shall be prepared at a later date to consider giving information as to the ratio between the number of counterparts received by the Central National Registration Office and the number of men and women in the three fighting Services eligible to register; but my information is that at the present date there is still in the hands of many of the electoral registration officers a number of Service declarations of Which, owing to the pressure of work on these officers, the counterparts have not yet been completed and sent to the Central Office. This work is less urgent than other electoral registration work because delay in transmitting the counterpart does not affect the Service voter's right to be placed on the electoral register, which dates from the receipt of his declaration by the electoral registration officer. To call for special returns from the electoral registration officer is, as I have previously stated, a course I am reluctant to take because any addition to the burdens falling on these Officers is liable to interfere with essential work on electoral registration, and the process of receiving Service declarations is still going on—fresh batches of such declarations are reaching the electoral registration officers from day to day.

Mr. Lawson

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that yesterday I got an answer from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport which revealed that only 2½ per cent, of Merchant Navy personnel has, so far, been registered? If one Department can reply, why cannot the right hon. Gentleman state the approximate percentage?

Mr. Morrison

That is an effort to set one Department against another—which sometimes is desirable, and sometimes is not. I am covering a much wider field than the limited field of the Ministry of War Transport.

31. Mr. Hugh Lawson

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is the intention of the Government to implement the recommendation of Mr. Speaker's Conference suggesting the automatic registration of members of the fighting forces.

Mr. H. Morrison

I hope to be in a position to make a statement on this matter at an early date.