§ 29. Mr. Les Huckfieldasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he has received any official report on, or whether British observers were present to observe, the conduct of the referendum on the Turkish constitution on 7 November; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. HurdStaff from Her Majesty's embassy at Ankara and from the British consulate-general in Istanbul observed the voting procedures at a number of polling stations. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Sir F. Bennett), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) and my noble Friend Lord Reay, who are all members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, also observed the voting, in a private capacity. Two other members of the Parliamentary Assembly, one from the Federal Republic of Germany and one from the Netherlands, were also present. I understand that all foreign observers were able to watch the voting procedures freely, and I am satisfied from the reports I have seen that those procedures were both fair and secret.