Electoral Commission

No, by all parties, if the papers can be used to support the party in any way. We could have that dispute, but I shall be happy to continue the conversation outside. However, there is nothing wrong with asking the Electoral Commission to look at by-elections, which is the relevance of this debate, and I have no objection to that. I share the view that has been expressed on both sides of the House and elsewhere that party expenditure is properly an issue for the commission. In many ways, I regret the fact that that job was suddenly taken from the commission’s remit and given to Hayden Phillips—not that I have anything against him, but it seems logical to give the commission the task of looking at spending. There is clearly an issue in respect of the spending that starts in seats—whether the hon. Gentleman’s seat, mine or any other—not just a month before the general election, but six months, a year or two years before. That is local spending, although it is technically disguised as part of a national budget. All those things justify giving the Electoral Commission the responsibility of looking further at expenditure. I welcome this debate on the Electoral Commission. My colleagues and I are grateful to the Liaison Committee for proposing the first debate of this kind. We each have a maximum of 10 minutes for our wind-ups so, on behalf of my party, I shall simply make the points that I think are most important. I apologise to colleagues, therefore, for the fact that I cannot reflect on all the other contributions. The proposal for an Electoral Commission was a good one and we supported it. It is right that the commission came into existence; it has done an important and good job and we support its continuance. The commission has spent a significant amount of money, but that has been scrutinised. Apart from one year, when there was a critical comment about some of the spend, the scrutiny process has endorsed the commission as having spent its money wisely. That is a good commendation, much better than what we hear in many areas of public life, not least Departments such as the Home Office. The debate plays into the review undertaken by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which was the genesis of the Electoral Commission, and is thus especially timely. Like the hon. Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers) and others, I have given evidence to the Committee and we await with interest its conclusions at the end of the year. Like the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), I come in to bat strongly in favour of the Electoral Commission. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said, both on his own behalf and reflecting the views of his Committee, when the Electoral Commission proposes something, the assumption should be that it has the authority to carry the day unless there is a strong argument against it. But that requires two or three things to happen. First, a minority of the commission’s members should be from political backgrounds, because that will provide the antennae and there will be authority from inside and outside. Nobody will be able to say, ““You don’t know what you’re talking about—it’s not like this in real life.”” The real life element will have been inserted. I am clear that that should happen. I am clear, too, that the structure of accountability, which was conceived for the best of reasons, needs to be reformed, so that it becomes a fully open and accountable process of scrutiny and moves from the present position whereby the Speaker, quite properly, cannot participate fully, because it would be prejudicial to his role as the independent guardian of the House’s interests if he were to express views. Therefore, whether with Mr. Speaker or his successors, we need to find another structure to open up the process. Such things should happen in open forum and the minutes should be recorded, and the Committee might therefore meet more often and be able to take more political responsibility. That would pick up some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley) and other hon. Members. Any failings—for example, on service voting—might have been picked up much more quickly and action taken much more rigorously. It would have helped the Electoral Commission to do its job better. I can see no disadvantage—but, yes, there must be a minority of political appointees. Four such appointees in a commission of eleven or more would seem entirely appropriate. One topical debate is still going on: we are debating whether personal identifiers should be part of the registration and voting process, and the Electoral Administration Bill is still before Parliament. My view is that if the Electoral Commission makes a proposal, there should be a mechanism whereby that proposal comes to the House, and that if the Government want to amend the proposal, that is seen as a Government amendment to the independent proposal. We will need to find a mechanism whereby that legislation could be promoted, for example, by the Committee and given special status. That is not impossible and there are parallels in other legislatures. The next big question is whether Electoral Commission has tried to do too much, and whether it has concentrated on the right things. My judgment is that it has sought to do what it thought were the relevant things. There are some very good election reports on all the major elections, including on specific sub-issues, such as expenditure at certain elections and the electronic counting of votes, which was tried for the first time at the London elections. Some good policy reports have added to information. An example of one of the ones that matter is the funding of electoral services, which are often underfunded by local authorities. There is an argument that political advertising should be subject to the Advertising Standards Authority. [Interruption.] Seriously—I have argued for that on many occasions before. Those are real issues, on which the Electoral Commission should be able to do the work. I would not join those who say that it must do only its core job; it can do other jobs too, and it has done them well, by and large. It is clear that it chose to concentrate on party funding. That is very important; the electorate want the reforms to be made. Mercifully, we are moving in the right direction, but we are not yet there. There has been a set of exchanges about the boundary commission reviews. The hon. Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers) confirmed that the boundary commission review of local government boundaries in England had been done well. I am clear that the Electoral Commission should take over, as soon as possible, the review of UK parliamentary boundaries, and I am clear that there should be one UK parliamentary boundary commission for this Parliament. That would save a lot of money to start with. We would not necessarily get constituencies of absolutely the same size. There are some very good Scottish examples. In my view, it would be illogical for the Western Isles, and Orkney and Shetland, as well as Anglesey in Wales not be seen as natural constituencies. However, the same principle could and should apply across the UK. If there is a case for smaller electorate in a very depopulated or rural area, that principle should be seen to apply equally in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but we must not continue with different electoral norms for this Parliament in the four countries. That is no longer acceptable. We should have the same electoral norm for this Parliament, other than for exceptions that could arise in any of the four countries. I want to make two last substantive points. What key issues are now on our common agenda? One of them is to ensure that we increase the number of people who are not only registered but vote—an issue that has been raised by other colleagues. A guy called Gordon Spencer, whom I met at an organisation in my constituency, has recently undertaken, as part of his degree, a piece of research based on my constituency, focusing on what makes people turn out to vote, or why they do not vote. I have a copy of that, and it contains examples of the information that we all need. The information shows, most tellingly, not that people were uninterested but that there were practical issues that made a difference. For example, people were away on the day and had not registered for a postal vote; polling stations were not in convenient places, and were not open for long enough in the day. There are many practical answers to the question of how we can increase the ability of the electorate to participate in elections, and we should do that. We are moving in the right direction, but we have a long way to go.