Electoral Administration Bill

I agree that several bouquets should be handed to Ministers in respect of this group of amendments and I am grateful for their engagement with the arguments advanced on Second Reading and in Committee. I am pleased that the potential nonsense posed by the imprints has been resolved and welcome new clause 15 in particular. The Minister was right to say that I called for that change on Second Reading, when I made it clear that a duplication existed in the two sets of rules. That was unhelpful in many ways, as the lack of distinction between those rules was causing problems. I shall not steal the thunder of the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), because he is Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee and I served under him in the previous Parliament, so I know how concerned that Committee was about the matter. I am grateful to Ministers for the resolution that has been achieved. Amendment No. 3, in my name, is a serious proposal, as it deals with a practice that is becoming widespread in all parties around the country that effectively circumvents the rules on local election expenditure. Literature generated from national parties’ central headquarters is sent to individual electors in a way that can be construed only as an attempt to influence a specific election. However, because that literature does not mention the local candidate and is instead signed by the leader of the national party, or someone else, it does not have to be counted against local expenditure limits. All hon. Members will have seen that happen. The practice is especially prevalent in hotly contested marginal constituencies, but probably unknown in others. All three major parties are guilty of what I consider an abuse: a piece of material put though people’s doors that is intended to promote the interests of one party and its candidate in an election, or which is intended to reduce the likely success of another candidate in that election by drawing attention to real or imagined shortcomings in that candidate’s performance or policies is election material and should be identified as such. I would have preferred the Bill to be explicit about that, but I recognise that the Government and the Electoral Commission are genuinely working to identify what should be considered as local election material. I am content to allow that work to go on, but I will not be content if large sums continue to be spent in individual constituencies without being caught by the expenditure limits.