Voting Rights For The Homeless

EDM number 836 in 1991-92, proposed by Llin Golding on 10/03/1992.

That this House is concerned that many homeless people are not eligible to put their names on the Electoral Register because by definition they cannot meet the legal registration requirement of having a permanent residence at a particular place; that many homeless people consequently do not have the right to vote in spite of the provision of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requiring that 'Every citizen shall have the right and opportunity...to vote and to be elected' (Article 25), to which the United Kingdom is a signatory; and calls on the Government to draw up and implement measures urgently to enable all homeless citizens to register and exercise their democractic right to vote; and further considers it unjust that British citizens who have permanently lived abroad for many years in luxury villas on the Costa del Sol may vote but not British citizens who have never left this country and are living in misery on the streets of our towns and cities.

This motion has been signed by a total of 41 MPs.