§ 72 and 73. Major Woolleyasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will publish in HANSARD the number of persons entitled to vote, together with the number of persons who actually voted in the last county council election for each of the counties in England;
(2) how many persons in England were entitled to vote; and how many actually voted in the last county borough, non-county borough and county district council elections, respectively.
§ Mr. H. MorrisonI regret that there are no such statistics available. They could only be completed by calling on each of the numerous local authorities to make special returns, and in present circumstances it is most undesirable to impose additional burdens on the staffs if this can be avoided. The number of local government electors in England and Wales on the 1939 register was 21,685,772.
§ Major WoolleyIn view of the fact that there seems to be a tendency for the smaller local authorities to be superseded by the larger local authorities, will my right hon. Friend make certain that the larger local authorities are really democratically elected?
§ Mr. MorrisonI should have thought that local authorities were all elected with an equal degree of democracy.