Political Parties and Elections Bill

This has been a very useful debate and, at the very least, it will help to inform all those who may take decisions about the new category of commissioners. I should like briefly to respond to some of the points that have been made. First and foremost, like the noble Lord, Lord Henley, I should make it absolutely clear that I and my noble friends very much support the appointment of the new commissioners. That is not our concern. The concerns that we are seeking to express in this amendment, which have been reflected by all sides, are precisely how those commissioners may operate. I shall come back particularly to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. We support the clause, but we want to make this change which is significant to the role of the commission. We want to make sure that the change is implemented carefully. I turn to one or two of the points that have been made. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, who has long experience, and to have support from her is a consolation to an amateur like me. Similarly, I received support from a different perspective from the noble Lord, Lord Norton. I do not regard those who are working for the political system in any capacity, be it for a party or outwith, as being somehow a lesser breed. I do not regard the elected or unelected politicians—the people who get kicked out—as being somehow more experienced—far from it. If I in any way gave the impression that I thought that the people we might seek to have nominated should be party politicians in the traditional sense, I did not intend to. That is not the case at all. Indeed, our new paragraph (a) is intended to reflect the need for people working, perhaps at a grass-roots level, who have never sought election and are not politicians. I take up the point that the noble Baroness made about open competition. From what the Minister has said, we must be clear that these nominees will not be subjected to the normal process of open competition, because of course the party leaders will in the end be the nominators. At the very least, they will be able to blackball any potential person who could be nominated to this role if they do not think that that is the sort of person who will reflect the objectives, purposes and partisan interests of that party and that party leader. I was glad to have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, on that. We must be absolutely open about this. I am sure that the Minister in his response was clear: this is not comparable to the open selection interview criteria that are in place for the other non-party commissioners. The nominated commissioners are a different breed and we have to be clear about that. That is why our amendment and this discussion are relevant and appropriate. I was also grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, for at least half of our amendment. However, I take some exception to his reference to "cartel", which has pejorative overtones. I believe that it is quite good, occasionally, for parties and party leaders to work together. I know that it is traditional at the other end of the building that we should multiply the disagreements; but even there, yesterday, there was agreement between two parties and the Government were defeated on a Liberal Democrat Motion. We should not fool ourselves that it is a bad thing for politicians occasionally to agree. That happens at this end of the building, too. I do not think that it would be a bad thing for party leaders occasionally to sit down and think about the corporate responsibilities of the Electoral Commission and to try to make sure that there is a good balance of representation, not just in terms of party, but in terms of experience. Therefore, I resist the idea that if our new paragraph (b), seeking to get a broader diversity, were to be passed, that somehow would lead to a cartel. All kinds of areas of diversity have to be addressed, as has been made clear in the debate, but I do not think this is pinning a tail on a donkey, to again quote the noble Lord, Lord Brooke. Many other things happen in this building which look much more like that. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, raised an important issue to which I should have referred at the outset. The Electoral Commission is not like the Committee on Standards in Public Life, where there are, of course, party-political nominees. There will be occasions when the body acts not only as an investigator, or at least as a supervising investigator, but as a decision-making body on penalties. In such cases, it will not be only the party representative of party A who will be interested in whether or not local party A is penalised in a particular way; but representatives of party B, party C or even party D will have a direct interest in that decision and that penalty. If there is a major investigation of a whole party, what do we expect the representatives of parties B, C and D to do? The representative of party A may well say, "I am going to set this out because my party is in the dock and is being accused of a major dereliction of duty, an offence under electoral law", but what about the other three parties? The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has raised an important issue about the commission not being like other organisations in which there are party representatives.