HC Deb 24 April 1987 vol 114 cc704-5W
Mr. Ashley

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list in the Official Report the most recent figure for the size of the electorate and the number of people in each category of persons unable to vote.

Mr. Douglas Hogg

The total number of parliamentary electors on the 1987 United Kingdom electoral register, details of which were published on 22 April in OPCS Monitor EL 87/1, is nearly 43,700,000. This figure includes about 700,000 persons who will attain the age of 18 during the currency of the register who are entitled to vote at an election only on or after their 18th birthday. It also includes persons temporarily ineligible to vote for part or all of the currency of the register, that is persons serving sentences of imprisonment, non-voluntary mental patients and persons found guilty of corrupt or illegal election practices during the past five years—estimates of their numbers are not available. The main groups of people resident in the United Kingdom who are ineligible to vote and who should not be on the electoral register, with estimates of their numbers, are: British and Commonwealth citizens and citizens of the Irish Republic aged under 18—12,600,000, excluding the 700,000 attainers on the register. Foreign nationals, excluding citizens of the Irish Republic—700,000, 100,000 of whom are aged under 18.

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