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Electoral Administration Bill

My Lords, Members on these Benches support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, on the same grounds as he has outlined: first, the undesirability of making negligence a criminal offence; and secondly, what in practice will be more important, the fact that this imposes an excessive burden on constituency treasurers. As the noble Lord pointed out, they are always volunteers and usually people who have a number of things to do. We have to be careful to avoid making scapegoats of them and thus making it more difficult, if not impossible, for political parties to find people willing to take on these jobs. The amendment is very sensible. I recognise that it may lead to a discrepancy between the treatment of negligence relating to loans and negligence relating to donations, but surely two wrongs do not make a right. It is then simply a matter of applying the same principle to donations.