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Political Parties and Elections Bill

I, too, welcome the Government amendments in this group. As the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) said, there was widespread concern in the House not only about the extent of the powers being granted to the commission, but about the way in which those powers were to be exercised by a warrant process that did not contain much accountability. From the start of the debate on this matter, the commission has conceded the point; in evidence to us, it said that it would prefer a different sort of procedure. The way in which the Government have introduced the procedure in the amendments reflects well on what the commission asked them to do: to move to a different process whereby an application is made to a court for an order, the court checks that the order has been properly applied for and the circumstances are such that an order should be made, and the sanction is basically the one for contempt of court—rightly, anyone who defies a court order to act in the way that the commission wants is asking for trouble. That is a far more proportionate, accountable and open way of proceeding. On Government amendment 11, the hon. Gentleman mentioned my concern in Committee that proposals to exclude vast swathes of the people who were affected by the commission's powers would go too far and we would end up with less regulatory coverage than there is now. I am entirely satisfied with the Government's response on that matter, for precisely the reason that he mentioned—the new drafting covers the cases I had in mind. I can offer the hon. Gentleman some comfort in that, compared with the previous debate, I agree with the Conservatives' amendments 46 and 47. He rightly says that there is a need for some sort of statutory limitations on this sort of regulation; we cannot have people who are long retired still facing the prospect of having action taken against them under these powers. For the sake of certainty and clarity, it is right to have a cut-off point, so I am with him in his principle, which is right, and I will support him in the Lobby if he manages to secure a vote on this particular point. However, I would prefer a time limit of six years, rather than five, simply because—this goes back to the previous debate—that would be more in line with the normal limitation times used in law. On amendment 52, the hon. Gentleman is also right to say that there ought to be a specific list of people of a specific degree of seniority who can act on the behalf of the commission. Simply making provision in respect of anyone to whom the commission might delegate gives too broad a discretion. This ought to be controlled by not only the commission's views as to what is right, but by statute, and I am perfectly happy to support what he said on that, too. As for what the hon. Gentleman said about the High Court, I do not wish to repeat what was said in a previous debate. His proposal might be putting too much of a burden on High Court judges, but this is a different case from the one in the previous debate; there might be a case for saying that instances of sensitivity would be involved where someone defies a court order and the appeal might, thus, be more appropriately heard at a higher level than a simple fixed penalty notice matter would be. I am very happy with the way in which this debate has panned out. The starting point was not right, had many difficulties and was inadvertently threatening. Nevertheless, some of the remedies suggested from various parts of the House turned out to be worse than the disease. I am glad that we have ended up at a point where we can all agree that the regulation being proposed is proportionate and right.