My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. To those who mentioned that the House of Commons considered your Lordships’ amendments within 24 hours, I point out that it accepted 94 out of 97 amendments, which shows the considerable changes that this House made to the Bill. All bar three of the changes—or four, if you include the small technical one—were accepted by the other place.
My noble friend Lord Tyler spoke again on the constituency limit of £9,750. As I said last week—and I recognise his strength of feeling on this—a balance needed to be struck with attempts to remove some of the administrative burdens that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, talked about. That is why we decided to raise the limit to £9,750 for the period from dissolution to polling day. It was originally about £5,000. That was intended to help many groups.
I turn to the amendment spoken to by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries. First, I generously acknowledge that his amendment seeks to address the reasons that the Commons gave for not agreeing to the amendment carried at Third Reading last week. That is very important, because it means that we are now looking at some of the detail. In moving the Motion that proposes the amendment, the noble and right reverend Lord talked about the importance of trying to get greater clarity. First, he focused on the fact that proposed new paragraph 2A(2) in his amendment says:
“Third party constituency expenditure—(a) shall be attributed to those constituencies in equal proportions, or (b) shall be attributed solely to that constituency, as the case may be.
The Bill, as brought to your Lordships’ House, says at new paragraph 2A(2) in Clause 28(5):
“Controlled expenditure whose effects are wholly or substantially confined to any particular constituencies or constituency—(a) shall be attributed to those constituencies in equal proportions, or (b) shall be attributed solely to that constituency, as the case may be”.
With regard to (a) and (b), the words are exactly the same. They are already there in the Bill.
The noble and right reverend Lord then gave the good example of agriculture shows where leaflets of a generic nature on a particular campaigning issue are distributed. He said that that should not be attributed to a particular constituency just because the show
field happened to be in that constituency, as the show brought in people from a wide area. I know exactly the kind of event that he is talking about and his example is a good one. I do not think that it is intended that that should be seen as a narrow constituency issue. He said that, to address that, Amendment 26B states:
“For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1), the effects of third party constituency expenditure are wholly or substantially confined to any particular constituencies or constituency if—(a) there is no significant effect in any other constituency or constituencies”.
The Bill as brought to your Lordships’ House says:
“For the purposes of sub-paragraph (2)”—
the numbering is different—
“the effects of controlled expenditure are wholly or substantially confined to any particular constituencies or constituency if they have no significant effects in any other constituency or constituencies”.
Again, the words are almost exactly the same. The only real difference between what the noble and right reverend Lord is proposing and what the Government already have in the Bill is in proposed new paragraph 2A(3)(b) in the amendment, which says that,
“it can reasonably be inferred that the third party selected the relevant electors or households”.
That might be relevant in terms of written material, but it is difficult to see its relevance in other things such as transport or media events—press conferences or rallies.
Therefore, the words are almost identical bar that one example and, like my noble friend Lord Tyler, I do not honestly believe that the noble and right reverend Lord’s amendment provides added clarity. In fact, I think it is less clear with that additional paragraph. The Electoral Commission is the body charged with giving guidance and it will seek to give guidance, as it has already had to do, in terms of the national distribution of expenditure. The difference in the wording is very small, but I fear that what the noble and right reverend Lord has put forward does not add clarity—it makes it less clear—and the other parts of his amendment are already in the Bill. On that basis, I ask him not to insist on the amendment.