Political Parties and Elections Bill

Perhaps I may put a scenario to my noble friend. This is a real world question. Imagine a young socialist in a political party who does his 12 months and then joins the Electoral Commission. He is then involved in an inquiry into malpractice in another political party—maybe the Liberal Democrats or the Conservative Party—and has to make a recommendation about penalties or is involved in the making of that recommendation. Surely that is utterly wrong and must be avoided at all costs. So we either have to extend the limits, as proposed in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, or we have to introduce other criteria on the way in which the commission deals with these matters internally. We have to do that in the Bill, otherwise we will have problems in future.