Electoral Administration Bill

moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 1, Amendment No. 5:"Line 95, after ““which”” insert ““the registered party is aware that””" The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 5, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 6, 9 and 10 as well. The amendments refer to two sets of situations. The first concerns loans made between a registered party and an unauthorised participant; the second concerns guarantees between registered parties and unauthorised participants. In both cases, the situation might concern either a transaction between a registered party and somebody who is, ab initio, an unauthorised participant or a transaction between a registered party and a person who was initially an authorised participant but subsequently became an unauthorised participant. The consequence in all these cases is that once the participant with the registered party is unauthorised, the transaction is void and there is an obligation on the registered party to repay immediately. If that repayment is not made immediately, then there are other remedies that, for example, the Electoral Commission can take. Our amendments simply say that the remedial measures should be taken only when the registered party is actually aware that the transaction is either unauthorised ab initio or has become unauthorised subsequently. I accept that a transaction between a registered party and an unauthorised participant at the beginning is likely to be extremely rare. However, the circumstances in which a transaction which is initially legal under this Act subsequently becomes illegal because an initially authorised participant becomes an unauthorised participant are likely to be more frequent. Plainly, there will be occasions, for example, in which an authorised participant, such as a bank doing business in the United Kingdom but subsequently deciding to cease to do so, may take that decision without informing the registered party. It might become obvious to the registered party only several weeks or even months later that it is now a party to an illegal loan or guarantee agreement. In those circumstances, because interest will be triggered from the first day that the authorised party becomes an unauthorised party, I think it only fair that a knowledge factor should be inserted into the legislation. I beg to move.