Political Parties and Elections Bill

I shall speak also to Amendment 71. The amendments are designed to stimulate a brief discussion on early discount payments by removing the possibility of them. I understand that the matter was raised on Report in another place and that the Minister there resisted because he wanted to maintain the greatest amount of flexibility, saying that the provision was modelled on the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008. We are troubled by the potential for this Bill to encourage over-zealous use of the penalties. If the commission has quite so much flexibility to alter its use of penalties, it may be tempted to hand out more than are due. Early payments would precede the final notice of penalty, so the notices that we are discussing are intended to notify a proposal to implement a penalty rather than the final penalty itself. We fear that while a discount may encourage early payment, it could also diminish the authority of the commission and trivialise the very important message that it sends out. I beg to move.