Derek McDowell (Labour)

I am interested that the Minister has a notion of the extent of the discrepancy. A total of 300,000 double registrations works out at between 7,000 and 8,000 per constituency. That assumes, for example, the register is updated to take account of deaths and so on, which it is not. It is a significant number. I assume it is possible to work out the discrepancy on a constituency basis. The Central Statistics Office produces population numbers per constituency. I assume it produces them for people over the age of 18 per constituency, or that they can be broken down on that basis.

It would be a useful stimulus to the debate and would enable us all to take it up in a meaningful way with our local authorities if the Minister could provide us with the numbers on a constituency or county basis, or whatever is available. It would be interesting to see whether there are serious discrepancies in one part of the country vis-À-vis another part.