I will be as brief as possible. I did not think that this part of the Bill would be contentious—I assumed that that would come with clause 18 and the recall provisions—but I have been somewhat surprised by some of the points made by the Minister. I have taken the opportunity just now, in relation to the points raised by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), to read through both the Bill and the explanatory notes. I have a great deal of sympathy with her arguments. As far as I can see—the Minister will have the opportunity to be “inspired” and rebut my arguments—there is not a sentence in either the explanatory notes or the Bill that says the provisions will not apply equally to Northern Ireland. The exception is, of course, the donations that are allowed from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland, but there is no specific reference to two different recall systems operating.
I suspect the Minister was not lucky enough to spend a great deal of time in Scotland in recent months during our referendum campaign, and I fear nor were those from the Cabinet Office. Many of the Government’s assumptions on collusion simply do not stack up with the reality of what we saw in Scotland. Let me explain. There was a concerted and clear effort by the Scottish National party and its supporters to co-ordinate activity. A number of organisations were set up—including Academics for Yes, Farming for Yes, Mums for Change and Christians for Yes—to receive significant donations from the same individuals, including Brian Souter and Mr and Mrs Weir, for the clear purpose of allowing multiple spends during the campaign.
There was a limit of £1.5 million that any one organisation could spend during the referendum, but the reality was that the yes campaign, through a very small number of donors, was able to stack up multiple spends. The reality is that it was impossible to prove on the ground that collusion was going on, even when brown envelopes were arriving through constituents’ doors with “Referendum information” on them containing four or five pieces of literature from Academics for Yes, Farming for Yes, Wings Over Scotland and others. Therefore, we are not convinced at this stage that the Minister has set out sufficient safeguards to avoid collusion by organisations.
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There is a valid point, which was made by the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and the hon. Member for North Down. The hon. Member for North Down is not a member of any political party, so if I may take her as an example, without sufficiently robust procedures, it would be quite possible for three or four political parties to choose, in effect, to club together and each spend £10,000-plus amounts from multiple unaccredited campaigners, and dwarf what she would be able legitimately to spend, even if she could gather donors who would allow her—as I am sure they would—to spend significantly more than that.
The problem is that throughout this debate we have been constantly referring to schedules or saying, “It will be coming forward in due course.” I want to place on record our belief that before this Bill gets to the Lords, the Government will have to do significant work listening to the interventions from both sides of the Committee to satisfy hon. Members.