Political Parties and Elections Bill

I shall speak briefly, as powerful speeches have already been made on this issue. As someone who stood as a candidate for election to another place on nine occasions and was elected, it seems to me that awareness of my address would not have enhanced the probability of my becoming the victim of a terrorist attack or of my family vicariously running the risks that we have discussed. It seems to me that there is in this country a somewhat paranoid response to terrorism and that threats are being disproportionately represented. That is not to say that threats do not exist. Every day we see on our monitor that this place faces severe threats. However, if we respond to every possibility of such threats by curtailing information and the accessibility of those in public life, we diminish our democracy. As a spokesman for some years on Northern Ireland, I well recall being subjected to threats. I remember being told that I had to assume a name when I stayed at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, which seemed preposterous, although even more preposterous was that the then leader of my party, the now noble Lord, Lord Owen, was also told to assume a name, when his face was one of the most familiar in the British Isles. Those sorts of responses seem suitable for acting on when a particular individual is subject to a particular threat, but I cannot see that we should regard everyone who stands for Parliament as being in such a category. I have not heard a single word to suggest that anyone in charge of security in our country regards that as a reasonable proposition. It is time that we got a sense of what it means to our society to behave in this way, running for cover all the time, and how diminishing it will be if we follow the logic of such a step. I hope that the other place will debate this issue. It is not something to be shuffled through. I am not making any comments about procedures in another place, although I think that my noble friend Lord Tyler is entirely right to draw attention to the oddity of what happened. However, it is important enough, as this affects the rights not only of candidates for Parliament but of voters. This should not be done without discussion in the elected House. It is right that we should enable that discussion to take place in future by indicating that we are not content with this clause as it stands.