Political Parties and Elections Bill

I would like to comment briefly on the new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. We have anxieties which mirror his about ensuring that the commission has a clarity of purpose which it has lacked in recent years. I do not blame the commission for that. Quite frankly, it is a creature of the political system and political parties and Governments have raised expectations about the breadth of work it can undertake. However, I think that this is a good moment to ensure that there is some reorientation to provide more emphasis on the regulatory monitoring and reporting of the democratic process and to try to avoid spreading the net widely in the way that the noble Lord mentioned. I do not think that I missed anything but I am slightly intrigued that the noble Lord did not refer to the proposed new subsection (3) in the amendment, which, as I understand it, suggests that the commission should not involve itself in local government elections in Scotland. There is a logic to that because the single transferable vote is the simplest system of elections that we could possibly ever devise, and the Westminster Government deserve some credit for taking a Liberal Democrat proposal and introducing it in Scotland. No doubt in due course, as it has proved to be so successful, Ministers will wish to extend it to the rest of the United Kingdom. However, I am not sure of the logic of making a specific reference to it.