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Political Parties and Elections Bill

I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern. However, all of us, both in this House and in the Parliaments and Assemblies in the UK, are in the difficult position between, on the one hand, being perceived as perhaps acting unfairly in respect of how those people are placed on the Electoral Commission in the first place and, on the other hand, being perceived as simply pursuing party, partisan advantage, by placing people on the Electoral Commission in order to fight the corner of our parties. That is completely against what we should be trying to do, as far as political appointments to the Electoral Commission are concerned. I would be with the hon. Gentleman more, on the basis of the logic that perhaps all the Parliaments and Assemblies of the UK should nominate a number of people to the Electoral Commission to serve as political representatives. Under those circumstances, if it so happened that the outcome was that there were no Labour representatives from among those who had been nominated, I for one would not be unhappy, because they would have been nominated by the Parliaments and Assemblies of the UK. As matters stand, it appears that we are nowhere near what I would consider to be an ideal outcome, which relates to what the job to be done should be and how it ought to be perceived as being done. I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman's formulation would overcome the problem of what it might look like to have politically partisan representatives on the Electoral Commission, rather than those who will be there for the advancement of the commission.