Political Parties and Elections Bill

I am grateful to the Minister for pointing out that our amendment was probing and was intended to refer not only to the supervisory issue, but to the investigatory powers. I take it that the Minister is saying that the responses are to be sent by registered post, and that that is the chosen means of communication, which sounds reasonable. I challenge him on one point regarding the burden that this would place on the commission. The other matter relates to an attempt to avoid having a notice served. It may be awkward to avoid a notice being served by an individual acting on behalf of the commission; it would be much easier simply to say that the letter was not received or to prevaricate and avoid the commission’s legitimate inquiries. That would seem to be a sensible point, and later we will come to the matter of ensuring that investigations are dealt with in a timely way. We are trying to come forward with ideas that would help in pursuit of that. In chapter two of the report on party finance and expenditure in the United Kingdom, the point was made that breaches of the PPERA, which attract criminal sanctions listed in Section 20, have amounted to 23 prosecutions since inception. That is around about four per year. We are not suggesting that people have to be dispatched, be it to the suburbs of London or the north of England or the Caribbean to serve these notices on a regular basis. These are very serious offences but there are four a year. On this side, we are simply saying that that care needs to be taken to ensure that these reach the people for whom they are designed in a timely way.