My Lords, they are innumerable: NCVO, Bond and a whole number of organisations have said to us that targeting into one constituency or a small number of constituencies is recognised as a possible problem. It is not something that they necessarily want to do but they recognise that there could be a threat.
As my noble friend Lady Williams pointed out so powerfully on Monday evening, this type of deliberate distortion of our electoral process is far advanced elsewhere, in the USA in particular, but is already on its way this side of the Atlantic as well. By definition, however, we need to ensure that the net is not of so fine a mesh that we create a totally inappropriate bureaucracy for much smaller, much more locally based groups. Here I think I share the objectives of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, and others.
I referred on Monday to this essential balance between transparency and accountability on the one hand and excessive regulation on the other. The collective contention of very many organisations is that while the 2000 legislation was a concern and is defective, many of them simply did not have to worry in the past because their spending came beneath the existing thresholds.
In evidence to the Commons Select Committee, the chair of the Electoral Commission described the threshold as the measure that determined how far you go down in the pyramid of organisations engaged in campaigning. I think she described the situation very well. It is not a simple, two-dimensional triangle; it is a three-dimensional pyramid, so the further you go down in terms of the threshold, the more small organisations—huge numbers of organisations—potentially feel threatened and have to look to the way in which they are operating. At the top are a small number of large organisations that might seek deliberately and decisively,
“to promote or procure electoral success”,
of a party or candidate—the now accepted definition in the Bill—and at the bottom are a whole range of smaller bodies that are concerned that their activities might be perceived to be doing so.
We can continue to seek to reassure them as to whether they really would be caught by definition or we can provide explicit reassurance in the Bill by lifting the threshold to its existing level. I think we should do just that. Our amendment on this subject deals neatly with the conundrum that the Government have faced in so doing. My noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said in his letter to colleagues on 5 December that in increasing the thresholds the Government would,
“need to take account of the consequences for the constituency limits set out in the legislation and the Government will reflect further on the detail of how to bring this about”.
This comes to the nub of the issue I referred to earlier. I hope that the amendment helps my noble friend.
The Minister was right, of course, that it would be plainly illogical to have a simple threshold of £10,000—or a much bigger one of £20,000 or £25,000—and then have a constituency spending limit during the post-dissolution period of £5,800. An organisation could be spending the whole limit of £5,800 and beyond without even being registered and therefore without declaring the expenditure. This would undermine the whole spirit of transparency and accountability that runs through the Bill. In the second part of our amendment, we stipulate that a higher threshold can apply unless all the spending is targeted in one constituency. I have heard the argument that this somehow adds complexity, but I do not accept that.
Of course, in a later group we will come to other detailed amendments, which clarify and make more workable the application of constituency limits. A whole section will do just that. I am sure that the Committee will recognise how crucial these are to the success of the Bill, and to its acceptance by MPs in the other place. After all, they themselves face very stringent expenditure limits at elections. When Amendment 166A in this group is taken in conjunction with our later Amendment 170A, which clarifies the scope of the constituency limit, it will be very clear when spending has occurred only in one constituency.
12.15 pm
The Bill—like electoral law as a whole—is very complex, sometimes necessarily so. Those of us who have fought elections have been made increasingly aware of that over the years. I do not believe the caveat in our amendment, which would deal with the conundrum the Government face about the relationship between national thresholds and constituency limits, to be more complex than any other part of this area of the law.
Briefly, I am sceptical about Amendments 167A and 167B. I understand the rationale for them, but I do not accept that it is reasonable for someone to spend £20,000 on directly influencing the outcome of an election yet not to have to register. I accept that the value of money has changed since the 2000 Act, and there is a rational argument for inflationary increases. However, in this case the outcome of that rationale would lead to an unacceptable amount of unaccountable, non-transparent spending in constituency elections. I believe that our amendment provides a very good compromise position.
Before Report, I hope that my noble friend will be able to revisit not only the amounts involved but the reasoning for having different thresholds in different parts of the United Kingdom. It may be more sensible simply to have one single UK registration threshold. With the caveat I mentioned concerning constituency spending, this may be the clearest answer. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. I hope that he will be able to respond very positively to our combined, very carefully drawn amendment.