Elections Bill

Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Tuesday 15th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I just want to intervene, not about the substance of the matter we are debating but about the process. We have two very interesting parallel amendments which have what one might call different routes to market. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said she did not really mind which was followed. I think she should worry, for reasons I shall explain. We tend to pass by—too easily, in my view—guidance, statutory codes, as just referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, regulations and rules. Who devises them, who decides what they are, who implements them and who enforces them? I think it is important that, at some point in the debate on the Bill, we take just a moment to think about the different ways this cat can be skinned.

In the debate on Clauses 14 and 15 in the last day in Committee, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who is not in his place, led the charge, assisted by several other noble Lords from around the House, to give my noble friend the Minister a kicking. I think the idea behind those speakers was to buttress, protect and safeguard the independence of the Electoral Commission. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, referred to this earlier. Well, up to a point. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and I are absolutely as one about the need to improve the way we scrutinise secondary legislation in this country; it is clearly deficient and no longer fit for purpose.

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, under my noble friend Lord Blencathra and now under my noble friend Lord McLoughlin, produced a report at the end of last year about the democratic deficit. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which I chair, produced a report on government by diktat. My noble friend the Minister will be fed up with me going on about this, but we are going to go on and on and talk to our colleagues in the Commons until we begin to get a better balance in the way we handle these things. That is, of course, a debate for another day, but in those two reports, we draw attention to the danger of what one might call tertiary legislation—that is, rules and regulations made by bodies that have little or no democratic control over their self-standing and no parliamentary control. It is important that I used the phrase parliamentary control, not government control. I am talking about control by the legislature, not by the Executive.

What I am saying is in no way a criticism of the Electoral Commission, but times change, commission members change just as Ministers change, and I am not convinced, as a matter of principle, that the Electoral Commission should be given too much independence in devising and implementing processes that go to the heart of our democratic system. We may feel that the system for scrutinising secondary legislation is not good enough, but we do at least have a chance to debate it and talk about it in public, here in your Lordships’ House and in the House of Commons. We cannot amend it, and I know that is a weakness, but we do provide a focal point for people who wish to comment on it, raise issues and express their support for it, discontent with it or opposition to it.

I see the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, in her place. The SLSC was very unhappy about some aspects of the procedure the Government followed about GMO and the new regulations, and therefore last night there was a lengthy debate. Could the regulations be amended? No, they could not, but there was a great deal of opportunity for people to express their concerns about that particular regulation. If the Electoral Commission produces a code, ex cathedra, there is no point at which that debate can take place. People can complain about it or write in, but there is no forum where Parliament—again, I say Parliament, both Houses of Parliament—can say its piece about whether it is fit for purpose. After all, it is Parliament that will be most concerned with and most expert in what is being proposed.

I favour Amendment 25, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, which says it should go through the Secretary of State. I assume that when she revises her amendment, she will say “by regulation”: he or she is not just going to write it, it will be by regulation that it would come into force. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, that if he were to amend his amendment to say that the Electoral Commission has to produce a code which will become a statutory code, I think that would also serve the purpose. At present, we need to be very clear that the Electoral Commission is not the answer to everything. There is a need for the democratic process to have some input into the way this is all moving forward, or else we will have a situation where a body may be moving away from the central ethos of what the two Houses of Parliament believe is the right way to conduct things.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

This is an important principle. The noble Lord and I have spent some time looking at the Charity Commission, on which he is much more expert than I am. I used to be able to quote CC9 and other bits of Charity Commission guidance by heart when I was a trustee of a charity. Does he think that the principle he is enunciating should apply to most of these commission regulatory bodies, or is the Electoral Commission a special case?

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I think the Electoral Commission is a special case because we are talking about an elections Bill, but it goes wider than that. My noble friend Lord Blencathra is hot on this. He has a list of bodies that are, as he would say, running too free, but the Electoral Commission is a special case because of the nature of the Bill we are discussing. A subsidiary question is, do we need more codes elsewhere? I have some amendments down later on, which we shall get to on Thursday, which will provide a way of clarifying and giving third-party campaigners some security and safety about what they are doing— I think that is much more important. However, that is a discussion for Thursday.

My last point is to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, about his Amendment 30B. We have said again and again that we need to have our election law in one place. The fact we are having to discuss RPA 1983 in connection with this Bill in 2022 shows how urgent this is and how the points made across the Committee need to be taken on board by the Government, who at some point need to find time to pull this all together.