House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure, as it always is, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Norton. I commend him for bringing forward this Private Member’s Bill, which I am sure every Member of this House will support today. I will try to be incredibly brief because there are so many speakers and further legislative measures being brought forward today.

Other Members will touch on balance within the House. Many Members here will have been present yesterday and on Wednesday at discussions relating to the absurdity of deferred peerages and allowing Members of the House of Commons to be bribed—that is what it is—by the promise of something in future, never mind the constitutional outrage that this would be, damaging as it is to the relationship of the legislature and the monarchy.

I will concentrate on why individuals might want to trash the reputation of and respect for this House. There will be those—we used to call them revolutionary communists, but, as we now have them in this House, we might find another name for them—who would want to abolish the House, or even a second Chamber altogether. Then there are those who sincerely believe that the only form of democracy involves electing another set of people to counterweigh the set of people already elected in the first Chamber, doing so according to list systems—that is inevitable—which would be drawn up by the political parties to give preference to those who are prepared to play the game within the political parties. We should be in no doubt that this is not about the electorate making choices; this is about the political parties making choices on a list system, either regionally or nationally.

The third group, which I find absolutely astonishing, is those I will call the provisional wing of the Conservative Party, which I can only presume is a set of people who want to intimidate the second Chamber into acquiescence. As the noble Lord, Lord Norton, has spelled out, they do not understand the function of this House—that it works without undermining the elected Chamber, according to our constitution, by ensuring that voices are heard, debates take place and there is proper legislative scrutiny.

However, I am not challenging those who have been quite rightly elected on the system we have, and in which I believe very strongly: the single member constituency, whereby people are responsible for a defined geographic area, and to a group of constituents.

I will be brief in appealing to every Member opposite—I know they agree with me—to try to influence their own party. You could understand it if we were discussing the provisional wing of my party between 2015 and 2020, but the name of the Conservative Party gives away its intention: to conserve. So, somehow, we must persuade those of genuine good will that trashing the constitution and undermining the reputation of and respect for this House will not achieve anything except a diminution in the understanding of how our democracy works and the respect for the democratic process more broadly. That is incredibly dangerous, which is why we should support this Bill.

Peerages: Letters Patent

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Blunkett]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what precedent exists for peerages to be recommended by the Prime Minister but with a request for the Monarch not to issue Letters Patent until an unspecified date in the future.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I beg leave to ask the Question that has stood in my name for four weeks on the Order Paper.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

The Government are aware that there is some precedent for individuals deferring taking up their seats in the House of Lords—for example, by agreeing a delay in the issue of Letters Patent. However, that is limited and largely reflective of personal circumstances. As the noble Lord will know, advice between the Prime Minister and the sovereign is confidential.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, perversely, the topical Question granted for yesterday helps us to clarify the Government’s position, not least on the difference between an MSP and a Member of the House of Commons, and the constitutional position and implications, not least for the monarch. Let me ask a very simple question: will the Government support tomorrow the Private Member’s Bill, which will be proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, to strengthen the House of Lords Appointments Commission?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I very much sympathise with the noble Lord, in that his Question is being answered today rather than yesterday, and I very much look forward to participating in the debate tomorrow on the Private Member’s Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Norton. The Government have no plans to change the status of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. It is an independent non-departmental public body, as noble Lords will know, and the Prime Minister is democratically accountable. As I said yesterday, we do not believe that appointments should be determined by an unelected body—but, of course, we will be listening and participating in the debate secured by the noble Lord, Lord Norton.

Home Secretary: Resignation and Reappointment

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I am not sure how much I can say, but as a new Minister, I can confirm that extensive security training is given to new Ministers. On taking up office, I was impressed at the security training. Noble Lords will note that there is a confidential annexe to the ministerial code which deals with security issues. This is a very important matter, which we all take very seriously. People can make mistakes—I remember this from being outside government—but there are remedies and they have been served.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I know that the Minister, of all people, will understand the sensitivity of what I am putting to her, but I do so nevertheless. Is it not true that there could be two really unfortunate outcomes to the reappointment of the current Home Secretary? One is the reluctance of the security and intelligence services to provide the briefings and the openness needed, and the second is the reluctance of other international security agencies to share information with us if they are fearful that it will be passed out from government?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

As the noble Lord knows, Ministers receive the security briefing that they need to do their job in an appropriate manner. The Government focus a great deal of effort on this. There is not a great deal to add.

Minister for Equalities

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The noble Baroness again raises the issue of people in the care industry on low pay. Obviously, we need to increase pay so that people can live a decent life, but as far as my job is concerned, I am full strength on equalities issues relating to women. I have just come back from the G7, where I represented women. I spoke really vociferously because, as I said in my speech, women are underrepresented, they are underpaid and they are underutilised.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, my views on identity politics are pretty well known both in this House and publicly. I might help the Minister by suggesting that it might be that the inclusion and diversity post is about ensuring that all people from all backgrounds—whether they have disabilities or not—feel included in and are given the support they need to fully participate in this House. Would that not be a good thing?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

It certainly would be a good thing and I am sure people in this Chamber are listening to the recommendation of the noble Lord.

Unemployment Figures

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I think the Minister is here to answer—

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Front Bench.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

Sorry, David.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

Go for it.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend and will try again. The Minister is here to answer for the whole Government, but if she does not want to answer for anything but her own department, can I tell her that one-fifth of adults between 50 and 65 who have left work are currently on NHS waiting lists? Does she accept that the very least her department could do is ensure that it can assure those people that, as well as that problem, it is not about to cut the value of their benefits as well?

Houses of Parliament: Co-location

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend, if I may call him that, because we have known each other since our days as undergraduates at the University of Sheffield. His contribution, as we would expect from someone whose standing on constitutional issues is renowned, has placed the beginning of this debate exactly where it should be in terms of a challenge as to whether those putting forward proposals understand both our constitution and the impact on our democracy. Noble Lords will forgive me for saying just one or two words on the practicalities before I get to the constitutional issues he raised.

It is very easy to dismiss proposals that are thrown up for separating the two Houses and placing the House of Lords in—originally—York, Stoke or somewhere else as being just a piece of mischievous politics, a threat or a piece of intimidation, or the throwing of a bit of red meat to people to say, to coin a phrase from the 1980s, “These are the new enemies within”—literally, within. However, it would be very unwise to take that view. Some of those who have been putting forward the notion of splitting our Parliament have a brain and understand exactly what they are doing but are not mindful of the long-term consequences and the spin-off that would occur in the way our democracy works. Therefore, very briefly, I want to make a contribution that I probably could not have made in the House of Commons because eyes would have glazed over—although, because I never see eyes glazing over, that has never stopped me in the past.

I want just to reflect on the history of the make-up of a functioning democracy, which is relevant today to the debate about asylum seekers or non-admissibles being sent to Rwanda. I touch on that because when a democracy and its representative functions do not operate correctly and effectively, people turn elsewhere within the constitution of a democracy to seek redress. In the case of the Rwandan issue, albeit that the Government have powers from previous legislation to deal with claims outside the country—both in the Nationality and Borders Act on admissibility and in previous legislation—neither House of Parliament has authorised the sending of potential asylum seekers to Rwanda, with all the consequences.

I raise that because, going all the way back to de Tocqueville—my noble friend the mover of this Motion will remember us learning about him all those years ago—he posed the issue of how, when a functioning representative Parliament will not provide redress and is not operating correctly, people will turn elsewhere. That is why Jonathan Sumption, in his profound Reith Lectures, raised the issue again about the way in which we do not push off the rights and the responsibilities of Parliament and the balance between the two parts of Parliament into other parts of our constitutional checks and balances. In particular, we do not push them off into the courts. The courts and the legal system will always take on what Parliament fails to deal with. We saw that with Article 50 and with Prorogation. I do not believe that we want that to become common practice. I do not sign up to the hysteria about the ECHR—the Strasbourg court—but I believe that people should reflect on why we should have to retain the rights that people have built into our constitution through the courts rather than through our Parliament. That brings me to the following.

If our Parliament is split and the two halves are in different locations, and it is not possible, as the noble Lord properly enunciated, for people to make representations, for us to share those representations with the other House, to hear from experts as well as pressure groups, and to draw down on the expertise that exists across our Parliament and within the confines of the hinterland of Parliament, we will not be able to fulfil our functions. I can easily dismiss the splitting of the two Houses: Black Rod leaping on to a train which gets held up at Milton Keynes and taking a bus through to Stoke-on-Trent to knock on a door that has already been opened, the Queen having been held up somewhere on the M6—that is the kind of nonsense we are talking about. Or there are the practicalities of a relocation of 600-odd individuals working directly in this House, not including those who work for Peers. Nobody has thought through the impact on a community in terms of house prices, rents and the knock-on effects —it is a nonsense.

However, the constitutional issue is the centrepiece and the core of why it is nonsense. That is why the noble Lord moving this Motion deserves enormous credit. We need to get it on the record that those who meddle with our constitution and our democracy without understanding—or perhaps sometimes understanding but not caring about—the consequences can throw red meat wherever they like, setting up false dichotomies and Aunt Sallys that can then be knocked down. We can abuse the legal profession, but it will be there for people if we do not do our job properly. That is why this Motion is so important.

Elections Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 27th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I support the noble and learned Lord’s amendments. I will be as brief as humanly possible, first because of his brilliant and forensic analysis of where we are and the importance of the amendments and, secondly, because there has been a tendency over recent times for noble Lords to filibuster their own amendments—I have seen it again and again. Therefore, I just want to comment on the second part of the amendments before us, the recusing of Ministers in dealing with the statement drawn up by the Secretary of State.

The Minister, in dealing with this element, talked about elected Members having traditionally been on the commission. I do not dispute that for a minute, but we are back to where we were when debating this earlier in the week: there seems to be a sad misunderstanding of the difference between Government and Parliament, and the role of Ministers representing a Government dominated by a political party and the role of elected Members, and therefore the commission, in carrying out their duties independently. This is a substantial constitutional matter; I am sorry that there are not more Members in the Chamber to hear it because, obviously, the troops outside will be rallied at the appropriate moment. Given that this is so fundamental to the way in which we conduct our democracy, election processes, and therefore the transparency and trust that people should expect, I believe that we should vote on this tonight. I am surprised that the Minister has not been able to convince his colleagues in the other place that they have got this very badly wrong. I promise them that it will come back to bite them.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

I speak to Motion B1. We have already agreed in this House that compulsory photo ID at polling stations is not necessary. At no stage in any of our debates have the Government presented any evidence that compulsory photo ID is necessary, or proportionate, to what they try to claim is a risk of impersonation. In fact, there is proof that impersonation at the polling station is not a significant problem. The number of replacement ballot papers issued in the last general election, mostly because of a clerical error in crossing off the wrong name, was just 1,341 out of over 32 million ballot papers issued. That is an average of two replacement ballot papers in each constituency, or just one for every 30 polling stations. Mostly, they were issued due to clerical error, not fraud. Therefore, spending £180 million over the next 10 years to make photo ID a requirement to be allowed to vote is wholly disproportionate and unnecessary.

In an earlier debate, it was stated by a Minister that if someone claimed your vote, they had stolen it and you could not get it back. However, the replacement ballot paper system means that this is not the case. Unlike someone stealing a parcel of yours at the Post Office, you can get a replacement ballot paper if one has already been issued in your name and an investigation is made, if necessary.

The Minister referred to Northern Ireland and the recent increase in turnout, which I am sure is not due to the popularity of photo ID. If we look back to when photo ID first came in for the 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly election, we see that estimates were that around 25,000 voters did not vote because they did not have the required ID, and almost 3,500 people—2.3% of the electorate—were initially turned away for not possessing the required ID. There are 20 times as many people in Great Britain, so you can do the maths.

However, there is a sensible alternative to the Government’s proposals. It should be seen as a sensible compromise. It would safely address any legitimate concern that the Government claim to have about impersonation at the polling station. Perhaps significantly, it would also fulfil what was in the Conservative Party’s manifesto in 2019.

In addition to the documents considered acceptable to the Government as proof of identity, there is a document already issued to every voter by the official electoral registration officer. That document is the official polling card. In the local election pilots conducted under the Government’s own rules, the poll card was deemed an acceptable form of voter ID in some council areas and was chosen by 93% of voters where it was an option. This compares with 5% choosing to use their driving licence and 1% choosing their passport. Most significantly, the number of voters turned away from polling stations was half the level of that in areas requiring photo ID. That is the real point of the Electoral Commission’s analysis of those pilots.

Every voter on the electoral register is issued with a polling card. There is therefore no additional cost in making it an acceptable form of ID. A fraudster would have not just to impersonate someone at a polling station but to have stolen their poll card in advance. In the unlikely event of it being stolen, it could be replaced, and someone using the original could be arrested at the polling station for using it. So let us offer this compromise from this House. It offers greater security but no discrimination and no great expensive additional bureaucracy.

I believe that we do not require substantial further debate on this issue tonight, but we do need to act to prevent abuse of a majority in the other place.

Elections Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 25th April 2022 Lords Chamber

That is a cross-party view in the other place and of course I agree with it. I urge the House that we should protect the Electoral Commission from this proposed newly minted augmentation of executive power. I beg to move.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble and learned Lord in his amendments, to which I have added my name. We have a cross-party understanding, I believe, that, whatever their intentions, the Government have got this wrong. When the House has the kind of unanimity that it has in relation to the Electoral Commission’s powers and the strategy and policy statement process, it is incumbent on any Government to listen and to learn.

The noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, in his dignified and honourable resignation from the Front Bench—I believe we unanimously regret that he felt he needed to resign—said in his resignation letter that we have to take into account how others see us.

The noble and learned Lord referred to the legislation in 2000. I was a Member of the Cabinet at the time. We had a majority of 179. We could have pushed anything through, but the outrage which would have emerged universally across our media, as well as from the Benches opposite, would have driven us back inevitably to a situation where we would have had to think again. I ask the Government, with less than half that majority, to think again. It is not what might be intended, it is how that intention might be perceived—as well as the real outcome. There is the potential for a Trojan horse to lead us down a path which could be regretted at length as part of our constitution. Crucially, this will be seen from outside the country in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, perceived in relation to the rule of law.

Gideon Rachman from the Financial Times has written a book called The Age of The Strongman. In it, like many others who have written on this subject, he poses the real and present challenge of the international democratic process being undermined by the clash between the strong autocratic leadership of those outside the democratic fold; those within the purview of the democratic fold who are leading their nations into autocracy and the diktat of the centre; and the participative democratic world, which involves people being listened to, not just in parliaments but across the nations, and taken notice of.

I am afraid to say that the clauses with which we are dealing this afternoon are a measure of a Government who have not understood that they should be on the side of the participative democratic processes which defend us against the creeping autocracy we see internationally at the moment. It is as serious as that. The Electoral Commission and the electorate as a whole, who were polled over the weekend, have demonstrated their concern. Most people will not understand the detail of the Electoral Commission—why would they? However, they do understand when a Government start to believe that their party and their place in government are one and the same thing—they are not.

I tried to put this across in recent legislation in other areas of public policy. The Government govern for the nation as a whole; they do not govern for a particular political party. Of course, they will want to implement their manifesto and the mandate they have been given by the electorate. By the way, there is no mandate at all on this; there is no suggestion, as there has been in other parts of the Bill, that the Government had indicated, in their manifesto and during the election, that they wished to deal with the Electoral Commission in this way. There have been suggestions from one or two Members of this House at Second Reading and at Committee that somehow the Electoral Commission attracted the notice of the Government—or the Conservative Party, I should say—in terms of what happened in the 2016 referendum. This was backed up by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox; I was sat next to her at the time, and it was a rather half-hearted effort to defend the Government on this particular set of clauses.

There is no argument for it; there is no problem, as the noble and learned Lord explained. What we have is a solution in pursuit of a problem which does not really exist. Fundamentally, we have a vision and message going out from this legislation that will be rued by us all if we do not get this right. I have a very simple appeal to the Government: take these amendments and accept them when they go back to the Commons tomorrow; withdraw the proposal because it does not have support anywhere in this House, in the other House, other than the three-line Whip, or across the country; and allow us to unify on consulting properly on whatever perceived problems the Government—or the Conservative Party—Labour, the Lib Dems or the Cross Benches might have about the operation of the Electoral Commission. Consult properly, undertake this in a democratic fashion, understand how we are seen as a country and get it right.

I ask the Government to please understand this afternoon that some of us, at least, will go to the wire on this one. So let us be prepared to go into next week if we have to, to ensure that we defend our democratic processes and practices. If we do not, somewhere in years to come, someone should ask each of us, “Where were you? What did you do? Did you understand what you were passing? Were you in favour of it? If you were not, why did you not vote against it?”

--- Later in debate ---

The proposed removal of Clause 16 is also put to your Lordships. It was noted in Committee that the Electoral Commission is already accountable to Parliament through the Speaker’s Committee—this again takes up the point made by the noble Baroness. However, the Speaker’s Committee’s existing remit is narrowly restricted to overseeing the commission’s finances, its five-year corporate plan, and the appointment of Electoral Commissioners. The purpose of Clause 16 is to expand this remit to enable the Speaker’s Committee to perform a scrutiny function similar to that of parliamentary Select Committees. As the noble and learned Lord acknowledged, that committee does not have an inbuilt government majority. By allowing the Speaker’s Committee to scrutinise the commission’s activities in light of its duty to have regard to the strategy and policy statement, we will give the UK Parliament the tools to effectively review the commission and hold it accountable.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

Can the Minister list which Select Committees have Ministers as members?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, the Speaker’s Committee is sui generis. Obviously, it has senior representation from political parties in the House of Commons. I have enormous respect and affection for the noble Lord. It is not reasonable to impugn the integrity of a Speaker’s Committee and I do not think that he was doing so—

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I was not, in any way, impugning the Speaker’s Committee. I was picking up the point that the Minister had just made about the corollary of a Select Committee.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord rose. I had started to make it clear that I was not making any such proposal. The analogy I was using is just a mechanism in terms of the way that the committee will be able to conduct its reviews, effectively holding the commission accountable on a broader range of its activities than is currently allowed in law. As I sought to explain to your Lordships, that remit is currently narrowly restricted.

For the reasons that I have set out, I urge that my noble friends and noble Lords across the House oppose the amendments put forward by the noble and learned Lord, and that Clauses 15 and 16 stand part of the Bill.

Elections Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 17th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I did not intervene in the last serious and lengthy debate. I understood how seriously many Members of your Lordships’ House took the issue. I had some peripheral dealings with clubs from the three major parties during my review and I have to say that the political affiliation was probably rather less important than the quality of the club, its community sense, the price of a beer and the nature of the bingo—all of which are very important—but the weight of political influence being placed on the clubs was not borne out by any evidence I received. That is not to undermine the point being made, but I would not place on the clubs the weight that I heard some noble Lords putting on them in the last hour and a quarter.

I turn to Amendment 54A and I am very grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who I am delighted to see in his place. This is the most important of the series of amendments that I have tabled on the third-party campaigning system. It takes us to the heart of the various concerns about the impact of the present regime on third-party campaigning, in particular—the phrase we have become familiar with, having heard it many times in sittings of the Committee—“the chilling effect” of the 2014 Act.

The problem for third-party campaigners is the lack of certainty in key aspects of the current regulatory regime. There are two particularly important areas. The first—I come back to it—is the intent test. The key phrase—I say it once more—is

“reasonably regarded as intended to promote or procure electoral success at any relevant election”,

which is essentially the linchpin of the whole third-party campaigning regime. It is interpreted by the Electoral Commission, which decides whether a course of action infringes that phrase and makes the decision on its own authority entirely. Although I absolutely recognise that the electoral commissioners work hard and successfully to reassure civil society about its fears, and I applaud that, the kernel of doubt and concern remains there to gnaw away at the confidence of third- party campaigners.

When we debated Clauses 14 and 15—I do not want to repeat the remarks I made in those debates—my noble friend the Minister faced very heavy criticism of the extent to which the Bill, as currently drafted, would undermine the independence of the Electoral Commission. As I listened to the debate, the argument seemed to be that the Electoral Commission should be made more independent, given more freedom of action. As I explained in an earlier sitting, I am concerned about such a development. Just as noble Lords did not believe my noble friend would have malevolent intentions, it was argued that he would not be in post for ever, and who could tell who might succeed him and what his successors might do with the powers that the Bill gave them? Similarly, I am not criticising the current Electoral Commission; I make that very clear. I recognise, as I said, that it worked hard with third-party campaigners to reassure them of the practical implications of the intent test. However, the commissioners too will not be in post for ever, and who knows who might follow them?

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, was among those who led the charge and was most critical of the Government in that debate. He and I have made common cause about the inadequacy of the present procedures for scrutinising secondary legislation and I do not resile from that at all. However, the criticism of the Government, if followed through, would create an organisation that would be making tertiary legislation. It would be promoting, making and enforcing regulation in key areas of our electoral system without any vestige of democratic control at all. I argue that this is undesirable.

There is, however, a way to restore this and to restore a decent element of parliamentary—and by parliamentary I mean, parliamentary, not executive—control over the Electoral Commission. This would be achieved by means of codes—codes of practice which have to be approved by both Houses of Parliament. Crucially, as a result, compliance with the code would give a statutory defence, so ending the uncertainty that has caused so much concern about the present regime.

The amendment therefore introduces a new clause that would require the Electoral Commission to prepare statutory codes of practice—powers, by the way, it does not have in the current legislation. The areas to be covered are listed in proposed new Section 100A(1)(a) to (d). Two areas are of particular importance: first, the intent test—the Electoral Commission will be required to produce a code explaining how it proposes to operate that test—and, secondly but no less importantly, we need clarity on what constitutes a member of an organisation. This is important because, once you are a member of an organisation, communicating with you ceases to be a qualifying expenditure for the purposes of the Act. So a third-party campaigner can build membership quickly and have an increasingly wide reach without any commensurately increasing expenditure being imposed on them.

In today’s hyperconnected modern world, it is astonishingly easy and cheap to email hundreds of thousands of people about an issue and put on the bottom of the email, “Please tick this box if you want to be a member”. I regard this as potentially a very dangerous opening, offering, in particular, the prospect of third parties holding views at the outer fringes of our society being able to build up so-called members, who can then be communicated with free of charge. This would offer such groups a campaigning reach far beyond their real level of support. The Electoral Commission currently has a series of categories—including “committed supporter” and “the public at large”—and I am afraid I am far from convinced that these stand- alone terms will be able to meet the pressures of an age of ubiquitous social media. We need a code for what constitutes “the public”—namely, the opposite of a member—and this is provided for in proposed Section 100A(1)(b).

The rest of Amendment 54A is concerned with process, laying out a list of the groups that have to be consulted by the Electoral Commission: the devolved Administrations, on matters concerning them, and a representative sample of civil society groups. The Electoral Commission must then provide a draft and present it to the Secretary of State, who may approve the code or modify it. If he chooses to modify it, he has to explain why he has done so, so that the difference between what the Minister and the Electoral Commission think is clear. A series of procedures for obtaining the consent of both Houses is then laid out in the latter part of the clause. Crucially and importantly, proposed Section 100A(13) reads:

“It is a defence for a person or third party charged with an offence under this Act to show that any guidance for the time being issued under this section was complied with in relation to Part VI of this Act.”


Amendment 54A could provide, first, a high degree of certainty and, therefore, reassurance on certain key issues of the regulatory regime and, therefore, to third-party campaigners. Secondly, by using secondary legislation, it offers the opportunity to keep regulations up to date, reflecting changes in society, social media, public attitudes and campaigning methods, thus reducing the dangers of evasion. Thirdly, it introduces a proper degree of democratic or parliamentary control of the Electoral Commission, thereby perhaps offering the Government part of a way out of the troubles in which they have found themselves in Clauses 13 and 14.

It is a common phrase that the law is too important to be left to the lawyers. I submit to the Committee that electoral law, which goes to the heart of our democracy, is too important to be left to an untrammelled Electoral Commission. I beg to move.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I put my name to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, in full knowledge of his long-standing commitment to plurality and his excellent report on the previous restrictions placed on third-party campaigning, including by charities, where he rightly pointed out that the chilling effect that has been referred to is as much a danger as the detail of what people are expected to do—in other words, the reflection of what people think they cannot do rather than the actual restriction laid down in the law. Codes of practice will be extremely helpful in the future when we have sorted out the Bill and, I hope, eliminated the attack on the Electoral Commission inherent in Ministers taking power over its policy and strategy direction.

Codes of practice are for clarity and enabling people to do what they do best, which is to take part in civil society in a pluralistic democracy, whether they are engaged in the formal political processes that we have debated under Clause 52 or whether they are involved in the political processes that make up a democratic process within a democratic society. That is civil society action. People will be clear as to what is and is not acceptable. They will adhere to those processes and be able to play their full part.

I was going to say that we have long Committee sittings followed by shorter programmed and amendable sessions on Report, but I heard what the Minister said about listening. Let me make it clear in my short contribution that Committee sessions of this House are valuable only if they impact on whether the Government are prepared to change their mind, and listen to and reflect on the expertise, knowledge and experience of Members of this House. Otherwise, we are spending hours and hours, with some people here into the early hours of the morning, not being listened to by anyone. I therefore appeal to the Minister to fulfil what he committed to in the debate on the previous group and be prepared as a senior Minister, a Minister of State, to take back to colleagues the deep disquiet over a number of areas in the Bill. Otherwise, I hope that this part of the legislature, this House, will stall the Bill. Parts of it are a fundamental attack on our democratic processes.

However, this set of amendments moved and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is a clarification and strengthening of the power while bringing about greater accountability in relation to the operation, as opposed to the destruction, of the Electoral Commission. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that.

[Lord Kerslake (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in favour of my Amendment 54 B. There is a lot to commend in the amendment of the noble Lords, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Blunkett. It is a serious attempt to establish a new accountability framework for the Electoral Commission. I am conscious that we had some debate in the previous group on the issue that I want to touch on. With the benefit of hindsight, it might have been part of that discussion, but I should like to make other points.

My amendment proposes inserting a new clause in the Bill that would require political parties to report on the amount of controlled spending incurred by third parties as targeted spending on their behalf. This is a relatively simple and straightforward amendment in an extremely complex area. It would increase transparency for voters and other campaigners by making it easier to identify in spending returns how much targeted spend has been incurred.



I tabled this amendment for two main reasons. The first reason is to highlight the importance of the report Regulating Election Finance, produced by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. There have been a number of comments and contributions on that report, and I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, is in his place. He is too modest to say it, but for me this was an exemplar of how to bring forward a balanced, informed and measured approach to the complex and fast-moving world of election finance.

Elections Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

Abomination.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

Thank you; I am grateful that I have some friends around here who are far more literate than I am. We will do everything we can to make sure that this abomination of a Bill never becomes an Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

Will the noble Baroness give way?

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

Go on, defend it. The noble Baroness used to be in the Communist Party.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Very good, well done everyone, carry on.