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Political Parties and Elections Bill

We turn now to an issue with which a great many Members of your Lordships’ House, and certainly a great many Members of the other place, are concerned. I was horrified to recollect that the first time I stood in a parliamentary election was in 1966—I was terribly young, of course. In those good old days, as other Members of the Committee may recall, we were dragooned into recognising that the man or woman who was responsible for our expenditure could go to prison if we did not abide by the rules. The amendment about qualifying expenditure seeks to bring up to date those simple principles of candidature, which, as my noble friend said, go back to the 19th century. They were well expressed in Section 75 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, 100 years after the first legislation on this issue, and we refer to that section in our amendment. Section 75(1) reads as follows: ""No expenses shall, with a view to promoting or procuring the election of a candidate at an election, be incurred by any person other than the candidate, his election agent and the persons authorised in writing by the election agent on account—""(a) of holding public meetings or organising any public display; or""(b) of issuing advertisements, circulars or publications; or""(c) of otherwise presenting to the electors the candidate or his views or the extent or nature of his backing or disparaging another candidate"." It all seems very simple, and no doubt it seemed very simple to candidates in the 1980s and even before that, but, as the Minister said in responding to the previous group of amendments, spending by or on behalf of a party has to be distinguished from spending by or on behalf of a candidate, and it is not. That is why we need this group of amendments. The amendment specifies the type of expenditure that parties can legitimately undertake to fight elections. It is very different from the situation in 1983, let alone in 1966. I particularly draw the Committee’s attention to the proposed subsection (1)(c) in our amendment. It states that, ""unsolicited material sent to electors, whether or not addressed to them by name (including newsletters or similar publications issued by or on behalf of the party with a view to giving electors in a particular electoral area information about the opinions or activities of, or other personal information relating to, their elected representatives or existing or prospective candidates)"," and then there is the detail of what other costs can be included. Since the 1983 legislation, and indeed even since the 2000 Act, there has been a huge increase in the amount of unsolicited mail sent to individual electors by name which, if it did not specifically ask the elector to support Mr A or Miss B, has been ruled as not being part of the necessary expenditure limits in that constituency. That is extraordinary. Now it would be seen to be very much part of the political weaponry of all the parties, yet it is clearly intended deliberately to get round the rules that have been in place for 100 years and more. Those of us who have stood in elections—not necessarily as far back as 1966 but more recently—will be only too conscious of how this trend has hugely increased and developed in recent years. Therefore, our amendment seeks to define all qualifying expenditure, including all party-political spending, whether it be from central headquarters funds, designed to influence a particular constituency, or whether it is intended for wider dissemination. This would apply regardless of whether such spending was promoted by a particular candidate or whether it was based on a decision taken at a national level for other reasons. Again, I make it clear, as we have done frequently in the Committee, that this amendment, together with other of our amendments, is intended to close the loophole by which parties nationally can go outside the limits imposed locally and not take any notice of what is happening in local campaigning, or take notice of the responsibility that the candidate or his or her agent has in terms of the controls that have been in place all that time. Frankly, the strict limits on candidates are no longer relevant—they do not work—while this expenditure is considered to be not subject to any sort of limitation. As I have already said, subsection (1)(c) of our proposed new clause is intended to catch all the publications sent to specific constituencies which are paid for from national expenditure. It should clearly be read in conjunction with the new clauses to which we have already referred concerning the local pre-candidacy spending limit and the national spending limit. It is intended to ensure that the entirely proper controls that have been in place for so long are effective. I also draw attention to subsection (3) of the proposed new clause, under which expenditure on, for example, parliamentary staff should not be included in such calculations for qualifying expenditure, but the expenditure on a campaign manager should clearly be included. This is intended to ensure that expenditure that allows an elected MP to do his or her job as a parliamentarian is quite distinct from expenditure on his or her campaign to be re-elected. We believe that this is a much more workable and relevant assessment of what should and should not be categorised as expenditure in this context. It effectively brings up to date the very limited list from the Representation of the People Act 1983 and, in so doing, we believe that it is much more in the spirit of the controls that have been in place for a century and more to stop people buying parliamentary seats. I beg to move.