My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 165B, 161A and 165C, to which I have added my name. I find it rather distressing that, here again, we have another issue where there is no evidence from the Government that the current arrangements result in undue influence of non-party campaigning in elections. Where is the justification for starting down this route?
On Amendment 165B, I declare two interests, first, as chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Speech and Language Difficulties and, secondly, as chairman of the Criminal Justice and Acquired Brain Injury Interest Group. I was concerned to read that paragraph 1(1) of the proposed new schedule to be inserted by Schedule 3 states that “Controlled expenditure: qualifying expenses” includes:
“The production or publication of material which is made available to the public at large or any section of the public (in whatever form and by whatever means)”.
Both at Second Reading and in my consideration Motion, I mentioned the problems experienced by organisations working in this area in the criminal justice system. We shall come back to them when we discuss coalitions.
One of the areas that we have been considering in Bill after Bill has been the problem of those with learning difficulties and learning disabilities who require special arrangements to enable them to understand the legal process in which they may become involved. This requires both written material and the provision of people who can explain things to them, because the police and others may not necessarily be able to do so. I am therefore asking the Minister if what we have here is a cross-counting nonsense because, in Bill after Bill, we have been trying to impose or introduce something to enable people to engage with the criminal justice system in this way. Yet, if you take what is written this Bill, it would seem that this is now to be impossible.
I fully support Amendment 165B which has the list of those things which ought to be included in the Bill and excluded from the expenses. I am not going to discuss the staff expenses at this stage because I agree with my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth and with the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu.
I turn briefly to Amendment 161A. I am concerned that the word “research” might be removed. At the
moment, we are conducting research into the number of prisoners with acquired brain injuries as we want to find out whether special arrangements need to be made for them. An experiment carried out in Leeds prison has discovered a large number of such prisoners and the people involved say that supporters are needed to help these people back into the community. However, such an initiative would be subject to the election provisions in the Bill. Why? It has nothing to do with elections, so why threaten such a sanction and why make the people concerned in this very important public service unnecessarily alarmed if that is not going to happen?
As regards Amendment 165C, I find it very distressing that the Bill states:
“The Secretary of State may by order make such amendments of Part 1 of this Schedule as he considers appropriate”.
Surely, such a measure ought not to be included in the Bill. It should not be up to the Secretary of State to make such amendments as he considers appropriate when so much work has gone into the Bill.