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Electoral Administration Bill

moved Amendment No. 7:"Page 54, line 22, leave out ““five”” and insert ““12””" The noble Lord said: My Lords, admittedly, this is a fairly minor amendment. It relates to the descriptions that parties can use when campaigning in elections. At the moment, there are no restrictions on the number of descriptions that a party can use. Of course, there are restrictions on the wording—one cannot use indecent wording or anything like that—but in a general election, for example, a party in any constituency can describe itself as the Oxford and West Abingdon Liberal Democrats or in a local election the Southwark Liberal Democrat Focus Group. Clause 48 amends the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 to limit the number of descriptions that can be used by a party at any time to five. Of course, that makes enormous difference in regard to descriptions. We would much prefer that the situation were left as it is, but that has apparently caused concern among registration officers. For that reason the Government have introduced this point. In earlier proceedings, I moved an amendment that would increase the number, very modestly, from five to 12. The figure of 12 was not chosen at random, but because it is the number that one obtains by adding up Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the nine English regions, and so that parties can describe themselves by a regional title as well as by a national one. That way, in England, we could have ““the Conservatives for East Anglia””, ““the Labour Party for Yorkshire and Humberside”” or ““Liberal Democrats for London””. That seemed a modest but possibly useful increase. I moved this amendment on Report and, since the Government said that they would go away and think about it, I withdrew it. Since then, I understand that the Government have thought about it favourably. In those circumstances, I hope that this amendment will now be acceptable to your Lordships’ House. I beg to move.