---

Political Parties and Elections Bill

My Lords, before the Minister replies, perhaps I may say how grateful we are that he clearly paid much attention in bringing forward these last-minute amendments. We congratulate the Government on that. To pursue the point made by my noble friend Lord Rennard, given that the commission will now have more political representatives, we hope that they will pay a little more attention to what was said in this House on 17 June and in the Moses Room yesterday in the debate on the Scottish order about the difficult question of descriptions of parties appearing on the ballot paper. It is clear that the word "description" is being misused and we are seeing slogans on the ballot paper from the British National Party and others. When the Minister replied to our debate on 17 June, he said that this matter would be kept under review. I hope that it will be taken seriously and that, with the new commission, there will be discussion about how to stop the ballot paper being abused and turned from the neutral document that it should be into a propaganda document, which it should not be.