Electoral Administration Bill

My Lords, I shall say a few brief words; it is the only time I intend to speak at Third Reading. I take this opportunity to say how grateful I was in Grand Committee for the sympathetic, sensible and constructive way the Minister dealt with the raft of amendments that I moved—which, no doubt, some people in her department thought were tedious and time-wasting, but which I thought were all important—providing answers and, in some cases, taking them on board. That is symptomatic of the way this Bill is going through. It is going to be a much better Bill than it was when it came to this House, which is a tribute to all sides and the Minister in particular. I also apologise for not being able to be here during Report stage. I was actively engaged in other aspects of the electoral process and thought that was more important than coming here to talk about the legislation which I was campaigning under at the time. No doubt some people are quite grateful that I did not come, because proceedings did not take as long as they otherwise might. I am entirely in favour of this amendment. It is sensible to increase the number of sensible party names which can be used. If I had been here on Report, I would perhaps have gone into more detail and moved some amendments which would not be appropriate at Third Reading, because an underlying issue has not been properly addressed. It is entirely sensible for people to be able to call themselves ““the Yorkshire Liberal Democrats”” or ““the Yorkshire Conservatives””— although my noble friend Lord Shutt of Greetland says ““Not the Yorkshire and Humberside Liberal Democrats, please””. It is perfectly sensible for people to call themselves ““the Scottish Liberal Democrats””, ““the Welsh Liberal Democrats””—or ““Democratiad Rhyddfrydol Cymru””. What is not sensible and needs to be addressed—the Electoral Commission could do this—is political parties using their party name on the ballot paper to introduce a slogan. That is wrong and ought to be stopped. There have been a number of such instances. For example, the Liberal Democrats in London fought elections as ““Liberal Democrats against the privatisation of the Tube””. At the last European elections, the Conservatives did not just put ““Conservative and Unionist party””. I forget what their slogan was, but it was something like ““Conservatives for reform and modernisation of Europe””. There is a political party purporting to call itself ““the Liberal party”” which at the last European elections had the simple party name of ““No Euro””. This seems an abuse of the system. Whether used in the logo or the name, slogans should not appear on ballot papers. Legitimate party names should appear on ballot papers. While supporting my noble friend’s amendment, I hope that the Electoral Commission will look at this, and find a way of banning people from abusing the ballot paper by putting political slogans on it.