Electoral Administration Bill

I am delighted to be able to move new clause 3 and grateful to you, Sir Alan, for grouping it with new clause 2. It has been a long wait, but not quite as long as the wait that I had before I got here in the summer. I begin by paying a genuine tribute to the Minister and her staff, who have been unfailingly courteous and helpful to me. When I sought leave to introduce my private Member’s Bill under the ten-minute rule on 6 July, the Minister immediately got in touch with me and told me that she was minded to support my Bill, but that it might be better to incorporate it into the Bill that she proposed to introduce to the House in the autumn. That is why we are where we are today, as I said on Second Reading. The new clauses would incorporate in the Bill most of the provisions of the measure that I sought to introduce after my delayed return to the House of Commons because of the tragic death of one of my opponents, the Liberal Democrat candidate. I am grateful to colleagues in all parties for their support. Those who have put their names to the new clause give some indication of that support. However, I believe that, for once, there has been an error because the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Devine), who has newly arrived in the House in place of the late Robin Cook, was one of my supporters, but I see that his name has been translated into that of the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), who chairs the Select Committee on Home Affairs. I am sure that he would equally support the new clause, but I wanted to put on the record my gratitude to the hon. Member for Livingston for stepping into Robin Cook’s shoes because he was one of the sponsors of the original Bill. I do not want to detain or weary the House, but I wish to explain briefly the effect of the new clauses. They appear to be rather more complicated than the measure that I tried to introduce because the Minister’s officials and the parliamentary draftsmen have taken a belt-and-braces approach to the matter, for which I am grateful. Delay was one of the principal causes of concern. Under the new clause, had my opponent died between 20 and 27 April, the election would have been postponed by three weeks at the most. My opponent died on 30 April and I would have faced either a three-week or a four-week delay. I say ““either/or”” because it depends on the time of year. My opponent died before a period that included the bank holiday. The problem of delay is therefore tackled fairly effectively. The new clause provides that the death of an independent candidate would not delay an election. I have previously argued that an independent candidate is by definition and sui generis a unique individual. If, sadly, that individual dies, he or she cannot be replaced. The draftsmen wanted to cover every eventuality and the new clause therefore makes one exception. If the Speaker dies in his constituency, he would not be treated as an independent candidate and the election would be rerun. We all know that the Speaker stands as Mr. Speaker seeking re-election. He is not a member of any political party but is in a unique position and the new clause recognises that. The new clause also covers what would happen if the deceased independent candidate won. There would be no contest unless it was simply a two-horse race, in which case the one who did not die is declared elected. I hope that that will not put too many ideas into people’s heads. The days of the straight fight appear, perhaps sadly, to be over. I was anxious to tackle the problem—I know that that applies to the Minister, too—of small and eccentric parties. We have not yet cracked that one; perhaps it might be possible to do so in another place. I am sure that if an ingenious Lord devised an amendment, the Minister and her colleagues would probably view it sympathetically. As the new clause stands, every registered political party, regardless of its size or nature, is treated the same. The new clause does not, therefore, deal with that. Rule 65, entitled ““Abandoned poll””, deals with keeping documentation in the event of a candidate’s death. As we all know, the documentation following an election has to be kept for a prescribed period. That would remain the case if an election were abandoned.