Electoral Administration Bill

Not at the moment. The pilot schemes are becoming something of an abuse. When they were originally proposed in 2000, it seemed right to try out some of these ideas, and we were prepared to accept the schemes. However, Ministers are now setting up pilot schemes year after year. We have now reached the point, particularly as the schemes are not monitored by this place, at which this has become an abuse. If Ministers want to undertake pilot schemes, they should at the very least announce them to the House. They do not do so at present. I would suggest that they should go further, and that we should have a right to approve those schemes. Otherwise, this could go on for ever, with Ministers choosing the battlefield and deciding how an election is to be conducted in a particular place. That is dangerous. If the Minister wants to increase the turnout at an election, she must recognise the role of political parties, rather than merely tinkering with the electoral system. The Bill sends out some wrong signals. The long-delayed creation of an electronic electoral register is welcome, but we need solid assurances that the information that political parties currently receive from local authorities, and the additional information that will become available through the central data stream, will be made fully available to political parties, without reservation. The Government are going to allow independent candidates to use almost whatever description they choose about themselves. However, it would be wrong to allow that while restricting the descriptions that political parties can use. Someone could stand as the Sedgefield independent candidate but not as the Sedgefield Labour candidate, and that would be wrong. Will the Minister look again at that proposal? The rules governing candidates’ expenses are also to be changed. A four-month rule will be introduced, replacing the start of poll as the beginning point for election expenses. That will take us back to prospective parliamentary candidates and parliamentary spokesmen circumventing the rules, which we really cannot have. There is also to be a measure to reduce the percentage of votes that a candidate must poll in order not to forfeit their deposit, from 5 per cent. to 2 per cent. I have great worries about that, because it will help extremists such as the British National party.