Political Parties and Elections Bill

To me, this is making heavy weather of the matter. The noble Lord referred to the question of accountability in the review by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and there is a whole range of people to whom the commission has to be accountable. The point is that, if it did something inappropriate, that would be identified. The commission will be monitored annually—or even more frequently—and I find the attempt to put down a whole list of things very strange. Having been a past organiser for the Labour Party and having been an electoral agent umpteen times, I can only say that the list would be many pages long, covering all the possible things that the Electoral Commission might have to deal with. The way that it reacted to those different things would obviously differ. As the Minister pointed out, some of them might just involve giving advice and some might end up in a court case. Not understanding the breadth of the problems that could arise indicates slightly narrow thinking in relation to what can happen in terms of elections, and I think that that is well covered by the sections on accountability. The Electoral Commission has failed in the work that it has been able to do, but I believe that this legislation gives it the opportunity to do exactly the kind of work it should be doing. If you narrow what it can do by listing its activities, what happens if there is something that you have not listed? It will make it more difficult for it to do the work. We seem to be making heavy weather of what to me seems a simple and easy clause of the Bill.