Electoral Administration Bill

My hon. Friends and I support all the amendments in group 4. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) and my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) for, at the very beginning of the debates about this Bill, picking up the point that the right hon. Member for Walsall, South has just addressed. It is very important that the OSCE recognises us as having the same standards as others, because it has always struck me that some of the countries that go around the world selling democracy—the United States is an obvious example—are not so good at it at home, and we need to be open to the same scrutiny as everywhere else. We particularly welcome the modernising amendments to do with mental patients, giving them, not before time, a civilised ability to take part in elections. We welcome the more flexible and adaptable arrangements for different formats to cater for people with disabilities, as promoted by the Disability Rights Commission, and for people with a different first language. We welcome the amusing and interesting idea that pilots will allow for photographs on ballot papers. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome said—I am not sure whether this is politically correct—that that may be a hidden way of trying to improve gender balance in our Parliaments and councils. Indeed it may. He also suggested that they should be subject to the Advertising Standards Authority—as in decent, honest and truthful. Having just looking at ““Dod’s””—I will not embarrass anybody—I noticed that some of the photographs were clearly not recent. If we are to have photographs, they should at least be from the past 12 months, not 25 years before, which we have all seen on election leaflets. The most important subject was raised by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) and others. I understand why the Minister said that, to her regret and that of others, the Bill will not include any mechanism for controlling national expenditure on campaigns that are clearly targeted at individual seats. The logic is that that will be dealt with by Sir Hayden Phillips’ review of party funding. I am not too bothered about who is the worst offender, but it is clear that parties with the biggest amounts of money nationally can now deploy that money in increasing numbers of target seats. We are not talking about £10, £100 or £1,000, but potentially tens of thousands of pounds. This applies to campaigns that would begin, in effect, now—a year after the previous general election—and take us right up to the calling of a general election. The only way in which parties manage to get out of the current rules is by being non-specific and seen to be nationally funded. Instead of saying, ““Support Bridget Prentice as candidate for Lewisham, East””, or, ““Support Oliver Heald as candidate for North-East Hertfordshire””, they use the party leader’s name. My party and I are very clear that Sir Hayden Phillips must deal with that. We expect recommendations and will put in our evidence accordingly, and we expect legislation to come out of the review in good time for the next general election. Otherwise, there will be no level playing field. We see this as unfinished business. I hope that there will be consensus, even if only on this one issue, so that we can move forward. We must return to debate this as soon as Sir Hayden Phillips’ review is over. We will certainly allocate time for that, and I hope that other parties will too.