LIBERAL Democrat peer Lord Tony Greaves has told a House of Lords debate that 302 postal votes sent in for the recent Lancashire County Council elections in Pendle were not counted.

He said this was due to discrepancies on the postal voting statements submitted with the ballot papers.

Lord Greaves was speaking in a short debate on new regulations about postal votes.

Lord Greaves said: “These people are losing their vote, either because they have made a mistake or because of electoral fraud.”

He asked what is the scale of this problem throughout the country and what action the government was taking to tackle it. Government minister, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, said approximately 150,000 postal votes have been rejected at each recent national poll across Great Britain for the reasons highlighted.