§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were(a) aged over 17 and under 26 years and eligible to vote in a general election and (b) aged 16 or 17 years in the United Kingdom on the latest date for which figures are available.
§ Mr. DorrellI have been asked to reply.
No data are collected about the ages of people eligible to vote. There were 628,858 people on the 1990 parliamentary electoral registers in the United Kingdom who were aged 16 or 17 on the qualifying date and who became 18 and eligible to vote during the currency of that register up to 15 February 1991. Information about the 1991 register which came into use on 16 February is still being collected centrally by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. This information will be made available by the end of May.