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One step closer to saving Election Night!

Jim Paice, MP for South East Cambridgeshire, is celebrating that an amendment to the Constitutional Reform Bill was passed yesterday which would mean that a General Election count would need to start within 4 hours of the polls closing.

At the last minute Justice Secretary Jack Straw backed a Conservative amendment to the Bill which went through the House of Commons late on Tuesday evening. It will now go to the House of Lords after which if it become law it would force the count in the South East Cambridgeshire constituency to take place on Election Night rather than beginning the next day as currently planned.

Jim has been outspoken in his criticism of the decision to delay the start of the count in South East Cambridgeshire until the following morning saying: “The drama and excitement of Election Night is a crucial part of the way in which the electorate can engage with the political process and must be saved. The Speaker of the House of Commons has made it clear that he deprecates this change of practice as I do. The candidates are entitled to a result as soon as possible, but more importantly so is the country. This is not a matter simply about one constituency but about the Government of the United Kingdom. It the event of a close result nationally all individual constituencies’ results are very significant.”

The campaign to ‘Save General Election Night’ has received high-profile cross party support as reports suggested that over 200 constituencies would not start the count until the day after the election meaning that the national result might not be known until late on the following day.