I was first elected as a councillor to the County Borough of Southend-on-Sea, so I am glad to hear that it is moving towards becoming a city. I am also delighted—I give the Government great credit for this—that the Government are pushing ahead with the elections on 6 May, when we are going to have local elections, police and crime commissioner elections and now a parliamentary election, and are allowing campaigning to be carried out during the period up to those elections. That is the cornerstone
of our democracy and the Government should be credited. However, the regulator of those elections is the Electoral Commission, which is inefficient, arrogant and politically corrupt. It is not fit for purpose, so could we have a debate in Government time about a new regulator that would be acceptable to people of all political persuasions?