Political Parties and Elections Bill

Perhaps I could go on to what I considered my strongest point, which is that such a shift risks seriously moving the initiative in setting policy away from government and towards an independent regulator. That would be damaging to both government and to the commission. I shall rely on what the Committee on Standards in Public Life said in its 2007 report, which we talked about yesterday. It said that the Government should lead the development of policy on electoral matters. The committee recommended that: ""The Electoral Commission should no longer have a role in undertaking policy development in relation to electoral legislation. This function should be the responsibility of the appropriate Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs"—" as it then was. The commission is a source of expertise and it is right that it shares it and offers its view to government. But to allow the publication of commission reports to dictate the focus of government policy making by requiring a policy decision to be taken one way or another in response to their recommendations is handing the initiative to the commission in a way that is wrong under our system, in which the elected Government of the day, whoever that might be, set the agenda. I argue that the Government should be allowed the flexibility to respond to commission reports as they see fit within what they consider to be an appropriate timescale, taking account of the subject of the report and other priorities. There may be circumstances when the Government feel able, and consider it appropriate, to respond relatively quickly. In other cases, they may require a longer period to consider the recommendations of the report fully before making any decisions, either because of the nature of the report or due to other political issues. Therefore, we believe that a time limit of six months is inflexible. Perhaps I may use one example to make my case. The commission’s September 2008 report on electoral administration structures is a useful case study. It called, among other things, for the establishment of regional electoral management boards chaired by prominent local administrators and backed by statutory powers of direction. The commission’s proposal has had a mixed response and, given that similar powers of direction already exist for the 12 regional returning officers for this June’s European elections, the Government have decided to wait to see how effective the power of direction proves to be in that context so that we can take account of that important evidence. Therefore, it is difficult to see what purpose would have been served by requiring a government response in March 2009 when that data would not have been available. In case there is any misunderstanding, we entirely support the view that considering commission reports fully is important. Often, a formal response will be required within an appropriate timescale, but the timescale will vary according to the nature of the report. I remind the Committee that the department and the Government have a good relationship with the commission. Officials and Ministers regularly engage with it on issues of mutual concern and interest. Indeed, I met the commission’s chairman and some of its senior officials yesterday morning. We take the commission’s views and recommendations very seriously, but we do not believe that an amendment along these lines is necessary—we think that the system works pretty well at present.