§ Mr. Battleyasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department which recommendations of the Speaker's Conference will be examined by the Electoral Committee which it is proposed to appoint.
§ Mr. EdeI am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me an opportunity to correct and qualify a reference in my speech on the Second Reading of the Electors' and Jurors' Bill as to the connection between the new Committee on electoral registration and the further examination of the recommendations of the Speaker's Conference. The Speaker's Conference drew attention to the need for keeping under review the voting facilities for the Services and suggested, although it was outside their terms of reference, that the method of registering service voters should be improved by the introduction of automatic registration. These suggestions of the Speaker's Conference but only these, will come within the terms of reference of the new Committee. As I indicated to the House on October nth, the terms of reference of this Committee will be as follows:
"To consider and advise what, if any, changes should be made in the machinery of electoral registration to bring it to peacetime requirements, and to what extent use should continue to be made of postal and proxy voting."