17. Mr. Driberģasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that voters working at some distance from their homes and thus obliged to spend considerable time each day in travelling to and from work and agricultural workers working exceptionally long hours during the harvest, have, on occasion, had difficulty in reaching polling stations before their hour of closing; and if he will consider instituting a uniform hour of closing for polling stations throughout the country on the clay of the General Election, such hour to be the latest that can reasonably be fixed, say nine or ten o'clock p.m.
§ Mr. H. MorrisonThe Speaker's Conference recommended that polling hours should be uniform from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., but as under existing legislation a candidate or his agent may ask for an extension of the poll to such hours, the Government do not consider that any further action is necessary.
Mr. DriberģCould my right hon. Friend say whether a candidate can ask for an extension even beyond 9 o'clock, because in some districts it is really difficult for people to get there much before 9 o'clock, and then they find a queue waiting outside the door?
§ Mr. MorrisonNo, Sir, I am afraid that is not possible under the existing law. The candidate, by simple request, can get from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. or such hours between, but one must consider also the long time for the official electoral organisation and the party organisation, and I should have thought that going beyond g p.m. is not very reasonable.