house of lords official report - United Kingdom Parliament

1099 Political Parties and Elections Bill [LORDS] Political Parties and Elections Bill 1100
[LORD BATES]
David Cameron has made in his personal pledge: an
incoming Conservative Government would abolish
the communications allowance as a first step and a
gesture in that direction. We would seek to reduce the
cost of politics and the size of the House of Commons.
He has put his finger on the national mood at the
moment, which is not inclined to put one penny more
towards the political process in these straitened times
but wants to see the system managed much more
efficiently. It is up to the political parties, through
interparty dialogue, to come up with ways in which
that can be achieved.
I would like to make a couple of other points about
expenditure limits. There are many other forms of
support that political parties receive from the public
purse, a point that was raised in the Neill report and
was touched on by Sir Hayden Phillips in his review,
where he pointed out the value of freepost mailings of
manifestos at election time and of political election
broadcasts. Significant amounts of funding are there
for the incumbent.
We are not saying that there is not a problem; big
money—I use the term again with no hesitation—needs
to be taken out of politics. “Big money” refers not
only to trade unions and major wealthy individuals
but to the public purse as well. Some steps have been
taken and it is worth putting on the record some of the
progress that has been made in relation to national
limits. We have just experienced a European election
that had a national limit on expenditure. That was a
good exercise and a good discipline to impose.
The very Bill that we are talking about came forward
with a limitation on pre-candidacy election expenses
for certain general elections. It introduces a limit,
which is a step in the right direction, as it acknowledges
that we have to find ways of reducing the amount of
funding that is going into constituencies. Section 18
talks about a system of limiting the amount of money
expended, kicking in after the 55th month of a Parliament.
However, there is an important corollary to the
point about the limitations on pre-election expenses
under the Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister
could put some additional remarks on the record
about this. The understanding was that that would be
matched by a limitation of the communications allowance
used during that period by Members in the other place
in their constituencies. It seems only right and fair that
any limit that applied to donation income should be
matched by a gesture from the incumbent Members in
limiting the amount that is spent through the
communications allowance. Various statements have
been made claiming that such a statutory instrument
or convention would be in place by the time the Bill
received Royal Assent. It would be good to hear that
this is still very much the Government’s intention. I
recognise the intention behind the amendments but,
for the reasons that I have outlined, we do not want to
support them at this stage.
5.45 pm
Lord Bach: My Lords, this group of proposed
amendments seeks to introduce a radical change in the
regulation of political expenditure in this country. I
pay tribute the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and the, alas,
not present noble Lord, Lord Rennard—whom we
hope is getting better—for their passion and commitment
to this particular point about national spend and
constituency spend. I am unable to accept the
amendments, but I hope that what I have to say will go
a little way towards making the noble Lord realise that
we want to move forward on this.
I will not go through the amendments one by one.
The noble Lord did not do so either. We recognise the
broad shape of the amendments from Grand Committee.
We are grateful that some rectification has been made
of some of the problems and deficiencies that were
identified in the previous versions of these amendments,
but we have some concerns. For example, Amendment 67
would impose a five-year limit on a party’s spending
but still fails to anticipate the problem of parties
saving up the majority of their permitted spend until
shortly before an election. In Amendment 68, we are
concerned that smaller parties would face great difficulty
in accurately calculating the level of their permitted
spend, given that it cannot be known how many
months will elapse between elections. These are small
points, but I make them in case the noble Lord wants
to deal with them.
The transitional arrangements proposed in
Amendment 70 appear to suggest that a party could
spend 75 per cent of the permitted £61 million between
July 2009 and the next election. That is probably a
drafting error, but prescribing any figure in the manner
of the amendment would be risky, given that we
cannot know exactly when the election will be.
Amendment 72 would require registered political parties
to report annually on their qualifying expenditure
under the proposed new system of spending limits,
although it defines expenditure as that found in
Schedule 4A to the 1983 Act. However, that schedule
lists the regulated matters for the candidate’s spending
limit, not the party’s campaign spending limit. That
list of regulated matters is to be found in Schedule 8 to
the 2000 Act.
Amendment 71—and here I come to more major
issues—would make two crucial changes to the list of
regulated matters for candidates’ spending, as set out
in Schedule 4A to the 1983 Act. First, it seeks to add
spending on newsletters or similar publications, which
is by the central party but relates to candidates. Secondly,
it would add market research or canvassing activity to
the list of regulated matters. The noble Lord, Lord
Tyler, raised concerns about the current list of regulated
matters for the candidate and campaign spending
limits in Grand Committee. Election spending is, of
course, regulated by separate limits, according to whether
it is by or on behalf of a party, or by or on behalf of a
candidate. This is clearly an important distinction.
The noble Lord’s concern is that spending by a central
party organisation, which might be specifically aimed
to enhance the electoral prospects of an individual
candidate, would not be recorded against that candidate’s
spending limit.
So we understand the point and the noble Lord’s
concern, but we fear that the proposals would introduce
further complexity into what is already a complex area
of legislation. We are concerned that they could be