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Political Parties and Elections Bill

I am a little puzzled by the insistence on a Division on the question of whether a final appeal under these procedures should go to the High Court rather than the county court. The question is not where the appeal ends up, but the time during which someone may be proto-criminalised while a procedure takes place. That may well result in an appeal being taken to a county court, or in the case of the final appeal, to the High Court. That was the thrust of an amendment suggested in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Martin Linton), to which I contributed, on the making of a defence prior to a proceeding taking place by application to a court about the nature of an omission or act that could invoke proceedings. The ability to obtain a certificate prior to those proceedings taking place relates to the argument about the defence of democracy, and the extent to which people undertaking acts that they consider to be part of their duties in representing the public in the political process can be criminalised by implication long before anything has been decided. As was suggested in Committee, people can end up camped outside people's doors, and a series of articles and comments can be published in the press and the media about something that has yet to be determined. Under the existing process for considering whether an offence has been committed, there is no provision for redress while the process is undertaken. The idea of being able to prevent that process from going any further through the application for a certificate seems to provide the way forward, given several of the discussions we have had this afternoon. My right hon. Friend the Minister suggested in Committee that further examination of those ideas might be undertaken before the Bill had run its course through this House and another place. It would be helpful to our considerations if he could indicate whether such considerations might be provided through further amendments, or other provisions, to introduce a more proportionate system before the Bill returns to this House from the other place and we make our final consideration of it.