Political Parties, Elections and Referendums (Civil Sanctions) Order 2010
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
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Lord McNally
That the draft order laid before the House on 8 April be approved.
Relevant Document: First Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, this order, which is to be made under Schedule 19C to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, as amended by the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, permits the Electoral Commission to impose civil sanctions for breaches of the party funding regime established by the 2000 Act. The Committee on Standards in Public Life conducted a review of the Electoral Commission in 2007. It found that currently:
“The only sanction that the Electoral Commission has if the parties do not comply with legislation is to name or shame or, if the offence is sufficiently serious, it can refer it to the Crown Prosecution Service for criminal prosecution”.
The committee recommended a new system of penalties to enforce the regulatory framework set out in the 2000 Act. The 2009 Act was intended to tighten the controls on spending by political parties and candidates, and part of that process was to strengthen the regulatory role of the Electoral Commission. As such, that Act gave the Electoral Commission new powers to investigate potential breaches of party funding law itself rather than have to refer most things of any potential seriousness to the police and to apply a range of civil sanctions as an alternative to criminal prosecutions. We are keen to fulfil this commitment, one that was made by the previous Government.
Following Royal Assent to the 2009 Act, the Electoral Commission initiated a consultation on its proposed enforcement policy. The responses to the consultation and the commission’s resulting recommendations were considered by the Government during the development of the order, alongside the valuable technical advice which was received from the Electoral Commission itself. The 2009 Act inserted into the 2000 Act the key principles behind the powers to impose civil sanctions, including the type of civil sanctions that will be available to the commission, broadly how they will operate and the right of notice prior to the imposition of sanctions, and appeal to the county court or sheriff thereafter. The powers closely mirror those set out in the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008, which established a sanctions framework for analogous regulators.
It is important to make it clear that these new powers are intended to supplement, and not to replace, the existing ability of the police to investigate an offence, and the Crown Prosecution Service to bring a criminal prosecution. Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the order specifies those offences that will be capable of attracting either criminal or civil sanctions depending on what the commission, the police and the CPS think is the right approach in each case. An individual cannot be proceeded against for the same wrong by the civil and criminal routes. Part 2 specifies these restrictions and requirements that will be capable of attracting only civil sanctions.
Part 3 ensures the continuation of provisions which are currently set out in Section 147 of the 2000 Act and which will be removed from the Act when the new powers are commenced. These provisions enable the commission to impose a sanction on an organisation for the act of one of its officers for a limited range of transgressions. The list set out in Part 3 reflects the list currently set out in Section 147 of the 2000 Act with the addition of Section 41(1), failure to keep accounts, and Sections 41(4) and (5), failure to maintain accounts for six years.
By contrast, those offences in the 2000 Act which are not included in Schedule 2 to the order will remain subject only to criminal sanctions. Examples of such offences are in Section 61(2), knowingly giving false information to a party treasurer, or withholding information with intent to deceive, as set in Section 148(1), or altering, suppressing, concealing or destroying, or permitting the same, of documents relating to the financial affairs of a supervised organisation or individuals.
Lord Bach
I am very grateful to the House for that acknowledgement. Both as treasurer and chairman I could be affected by the legislation that is now on the statute book.
I congratulate the Electoral Commission on the note it sent to noble Lords on this order, but I invite it to use its considerable powers—and they are considerable, as has been pointed out in the debate—with care, tolerance and humanity, bearing in mind the voluntary nature of so much political activity in this country. We support the order.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I shall reply briefly to this debate. I am sure that we are all impressed by the climb of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, from treasurer to party chairman. Disraeli called that climbing the greasy pole.
I shall also respond briefly to the noble Lord’s point about the Ministry of Justice. Twelve years ago, I served on an inquiry, initiated by this House and chaired by the late Lord Slynn, into whether the ethos of public service was still alive and well in our Civil Service after the changes that had taken place in the 1980s and 1990s. Our report stated that yes, it really was alive and well—people in our public service were motivated by a sense of public duty and public service. Since returning into government five months ago, my experience has been such that I would not change a word of that report. I have been much moved and impressed by the dedication of the public servants with whom I have worked at all levels. I am well aware that percentages are meaningless for the individuals concerned. For them, the unemployment is 100 per cent. Therefore, we will try to manage the changes that we judge to be inevitable with a duty of care to those people and with as much humanity as we possibly can.
I am very familiar with this topic because more than a decade ago I was on the Benches opposite arguing about the Bill and many of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Martin, raised. I remember the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, and myself, as two former party officials, pointing out that the Bill was couched in terms that made the treasurership of a political party sound like one of those golden prizes in politics, whereas the hard truth is that it is usually given to someone who has inadvertently left the room at the wrong time. It was argued at the time that the commission would have all kinds of talents except perhaps the most valuable talent of all—the ability to run elections at the sticky end for the political parties. The most recent appointments to the commission have been an attempt to remedy that, because the nominees have come from the political parties. I hope that that answer meets the point that was raised.
The noble Lord, Lord Martin, and my noble friend Lord Tyler asked whether the heavy hand of sanctions would come down on inexperience or on genuine mistakes. The Electoral Commission, in putting forward how it wants to approach these matters, said:
“We recognise that many of those responsible for complying with the law on party and election finance are volunteers … The new civil sanctions will allow us to use more constructive approaches to secure compliance in cases where the law has been broken. For example, we could issue a statutory notice designed to improve future compliance, rather than just imposing a less flexible penalty such as a fine.”
As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, a lot of work was done on this before the general election, and this order reflects that. The thinking behind it is that the Electoral Commission was faced with using either a tap on the wrist or a criminal prosecution. The order gives it a range of measures. What is in the order, and what is in the remarks that I made when I introduced it, is the point that the Electoral Commission is in no doubt that proportionality will be expected of it. With political experience in the commission, I hope that it will be able to use these powers with due proportionality and that there will be no sledgehammer, as the noble Lord, Lord Martin, and my noble friend Lord Tyler feared.
My only other point is in response to my noble friend Lord Tyler, who asked about the funding of political parties. This is a firm commitment in the coalition agreement. It was mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. I am tempted to say that the Government will move directly to the measure as soon as reform of the House of Lords has passed, but that might be seen as not the kind of commitment that the House is looking for. As my noble friend Lord Tyler said, noble Lords on all sides of the House know that in the previous Parliament we came very close to getting agreement on party funding. The coalition Government are committed to try again and we hope, as the Opposition are nodding vigorously, that if we initiate a new attempt to get agreement on party funding, we will succeed this time.
Lord Bach
I absolutely agree with everything that the noble Lord has said, but if he wants to know the reason why the talks on political funding failed—as Christopher Wren said when asked for what his monument would be—he should look around him. It is the people with whom he is in coalition who have prevented it happening.
Lord McNally
I would prefer to leave those matters to the historians. We are looking forward. The Committee on Standards in Public Life is making a report. The report to which my noble friend Lord Tyler referred is on my desk at the moment. I think that we have a really good chance of taking matters forward. As I have said before, all the major parties have at some time or other faced problems, embarrassments and difficulties because of our way of funding political parties. If we really apply ourselves early in this Parliament to the problem, we could and should find a solution.
I commend the order to the House. It will help the party activists. I finish by endorsing the comments made by my noble friend Lord Tyler and the noble Lords, Lord Martin and Lord Bach, who all have campaign medals as party activists. Nothing annoys me more during a general election than knocking on a door only to be told by some proud person that they never vote and that we are all in it for what we can get. We know that our democracy works because of the tens of thousands in every political party who are willing to do those hard, dull jobs such as sticking things through doors and knocking on the doors of perfect strangers to engage them in discussion. They are the people who make our democracy work. I pay tribute to them and hope that this order will make that voluntary work a little easier.