My Lords, it is quite sweet to have these two amendments in the same group. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, knows which one I prefer.
Clearly, you have to make the political parties pay attention. At the moment political parties face higher fines for data protection breaches than they do for
breaking election law, which is really inappropriate. The risk is that fines for breaking election law just become part of the cost of doing business for political parties, especially those with the deepest pockets and richest donors. That is clearly not the Green Party, but it could be other political parties represented in this Chamber.
Amendment 18 would mean that the penalties for breaking election law would actually hurt the law-breakers. It follows the same logic as the general data protection regulations by implementing proportional fines so that big organisations have to pay attention.