Electoral Administration Bill

I am enjoying it. Metaphors about banging heads against a brick wall come to mind. Questions were asked about new clause 15 and the reporting issues. It is true that success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. At least three hon. Members claimed paternity of new clause 15, but I am happy to give credit where it is due. I said immediately before the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) entered the Chamber how indebted we were to him and his Committee for its report, so I am happy to repeat that now. I am grateful to him for casting the move as deregulatory. I had not conceived of it in those terms, but that will win us brownie points with the Cabinet Office and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, who champions the deregulation agenda with great vigour. The discussion about the period of four months highlighted the fact that everyone accepts that there is a problem, but understands that any solution proposed would create other problems. That shows the need for us not to be too prescriptive in primary legislation, but to proceed slowly and incrementally through secondary legislation. A specific point was made about leadership elections. I appreciate that they are all the rage these days and am sure that we will have one in due course. There are two possible solutions to the problem that the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) mentioned. We would have to consider what the money was being spent on and ensure that our definitions were sufficiently robust to withstand the case that he mentioned. I was glad that he raised the matter because I had not considered it and we will now do so. It is important that we get the limit right in the run-up period because it must be high enough so that the routine run-of-the-mill stuff done by us, constituency associations and constituency Labour parties is not constrained, but low enough to dissuade rich people from trying to buy seats. That is the essential dilemma that we face. It would be foolish to put such limits into primary legislation, so I commend the what has been proposed to the House. Question put and agreed to. Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.