Voting Rights: Foreign Nationals
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many people with citizenship of other countries can vote in UK elections; of which countries such people hold citizenship; which elections they are eligible to vote in; and whether these arrangements are reciprocal.
Answered by Rushanara Ali
Electoral statistics are not available broken down by citizenship.
The franchise for UK Parliamentary elections, Northern Ireland Assembly elections, local government elections in England and Northern Ireland and Police and Crime Commissioner elections in England and Wales are reserved. This answer relates to reserved elections only.
Irish citizens resident in the UK can vote in all elections. These rights are reciprocal. Commonwealth citizens lawfully resident in the UK can vote in all elections. These rights are not generally reciprocal.
EU citizens resident in the UK before EU exit can in the main continue to vote in local elections. Post-Brexit migrants from some EU Member States (Poland, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal and Denmark), with whom the Government has agreed reciprocal arrangements, can vote in local elections.
The franchise for devolved elections in Scotland and Wales is a matter for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
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