Overseas Electors Bill: Money Resolution — Restrict Spending — 16 Oct 2018 at 16:59

The majority of MPs voted to enable any British citizen who has moved abroad to vote in United Kingdom and European Union Parliamentary elections.

The Overseas Electors Bill[1][2] sought to allow any British citizen who has moved abroad to vote in United Kingdom, and European Union Parliamentary elections. At the time the Bill was proposed voting rights were only retained for fifteen years after leaving the country.

MPs were considering the motion:

  • That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Overseas Electors Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.

the amendment rejected in this vote was:

  • to leave out “any increase” and insert
  • “an increase not exceeding £10,000 in any financial year prior to the financial year after the financial year in which a Minister of the Crown lays before the House of Commons a report on the expected increases arising from the Act and any increase thereafter”.

During the debate Government minister Chloe Smith MP (Conservative, Norwich North) stated[3]:

  • The figure in the proposal, £10,000 per annum, is just 1% of the estimated cost of implementing the Bill.

Restricting the amount of money which could be spent implementing the bill to just 1% of what the Government considered was required to implement it would have prevented it from having the intended impact. Technically more people may have been eligible to vote but the Government would not have been able to put in place systems effectively enabling them to do so.

Debate in Parliament |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Con287 (+2 tell) 0091.5%
DUP9 0090.0%
Green0 10100.0%
Independent0 4057.1%
Lab0 222 (+2 tell)087.2%
LDem0 000.0%
PC0 40100.0%
SNP0 28080.0%
Total:296 259087.1%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

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