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Electoral Administration Bill

I am grateful for the welcome to the provision, which reduces the minimum age from 21 to 18. I hope that we are all comfortable with that. As the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, said, the close of nominations for parliamentary elections would be 11 working days before the poll. I know that we have had uncertainty in the past about when a candidate was required to have reached the minimum age. I have a lot of sympathy with the amendment. However, we want the same nomination procedures in respect of age and other ways in which someone might be disqualified. Therefore, we have chosen to put everything on the same day. I understand that there will be the occasional candidate for whom that will be a difficulty. But we have to choose one way to do this, and we think that the date on which nominations close is the right way. It is clear and unambiguous, and is the point when the determining factors of nominations and other issues of disqualification might apply. Therefore, for the moment we have chosen that date and will stick with it.