---

Electoral Administration Bill

Of course, we used to run our Conservative associations—I guess that the same is true of Labour associations—properly until the election was called, and then close them down for the election period, so that they could not spend anything that could conceivably be construed as promoting the candidate. We cannot close our associations down for three months beforehand in the belief that there might be an election, so surely a limit must be set that allows an association—be it Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat—to spend its money promoting itself and its message in the normal way, and to promote any local government candidates who may be needed for by-elections or local government elections. Otherwise, associations could apparently overspend, even though the money was spent on more general purposes.