Elections Bill

Lord Rennard Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, over the past 200 years, historically significant Bills have come before Parliament to allow a greater number of our citizens to vote. A number of them were referred to in the excellent and entertaining maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham, whose late father I also remember with great affection—we campaigned together a number of times. However, this Bill reverses that process by creating unnecessary barriers to participation by people who are legally entitled to vote. At the same time, the Government are deliberately failing to act to ensure that many others who are legally entitled to vote are included in the list of people able to do so. There is little in the Bill to welcome.

No other country has such strict provisions as requiring photo ID to vote without some provision being made for those people who go to a polling station without it. The proposed requirement for photo ID goes significantly further than the proposals made by the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, in his government-inspired review of electoral laws. The Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee, with—I emphasise this point—its Conservative majority, said:

“We are concerned that the evidence to support the voter ID requirement simply is not good enough.”


I have previously urged the Government to investigate the number of people who arrive at a polling station to find that their vote has already been cast. The Government will not do this, and that is clearly because the evidence from returning officers confirms that it is an extremely rare event. Even when it happens—if it happens—there is a process by which anyone in such circumstances can still claim their vote. Their vote is simply given a different coloured ballot paper which is put aside but which could be counted if relevant to the outcome of the election and investigation required. In contrast, if a parcel at the post office is taken by the wrong person, it cannot be replaced, but at a polling station, a replacement ballot paper is issued in the unlikely event that the person’s name has already been crossed off the list of those who have already voted. In other words, a parcel cannot be replaced and appropriate ID is necessary before it is handed over, but a stolen ballot paper can be immediately replaced, so photo ID is not necessary. All the evidence is that this virtually never happens.

The projected cost of introducing photo ID in the Government’s own impact assessment amounts to £180 million over 10 years. How many times do we debate necessary things in this House which might require a sum smaller than £180 million and the Government say there is no money, yet they are willing to commit to this extremely wasteful expenditure for which the motivation is suspect? It will affect some communities disproportionately, and these are communities that are already underregistered.

Some of the measures in the Bill are welcome, such as the principle of extending the franchise to all UK citizens living overseas. They have a stake in our country’s future, but they do not generally have a stake in a particular constituency where they may not have lived for many decades. The proper way of enfranchising them would be to do what they do in France, for example, and create dedicated constituencies for overseas citizens, so that their special interests are properly represented.

However, the Bill is not about enfranchising them, as claimed. How do we know that? Because it is still incredibly difficult to vote from abroad. The proposals in the Bill for registering people who have not been on the voting register in the last 15 years are incredibly problematic. For those who are registered, proxy voting is often difficult to arrange, so postal votes must be applied for and granted. When nominations close, ballot papers must be printed, and then posted abroad. When completed, the ballot papers must work their way back through different countries’ postal systems, and very often they do not arrive with the relevant returning officer by polling day. These problems must be addressed, and allowing postal vote applications to be made electronically is insufficient.

The real reason for extending the franchise is not about voting rights but about donations, which must come from individuals on the voting registers. In December 2019, the then Minister for the Constitution announced to the other place that the maximum limits on expenditure by political parties in a general election could be increased considerably, since they were set in 2000. In 2000, Parliament was asked to support the creation of a more level playing field in national elections. Since then, only the Conservative Party has come close to the maximum of £20 million. So an increase now would favour only one party, the Conservative Party, and the principle previously agreed by Parliament, of seeking a level playing field, would end. The Government then suggested that the increase should be in line with inflation since 2000. That is now about 79%, and would mean increasing the limit from approximately £20 million to £36 million. Will the Minister say that this will not happen? He should bear in mind that, in 2019, the Times showed that 28 out of 93 British billionaires have moved to tax havens or are in the process of relocating. The Bill will facilitate billionaire tax exiles, who may not have lived here for decades, contributing to the Conservative Party.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Rennard Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, in 1909, Lloyd George put forward the People’s Budget, proposing measures such as the introduction of the first ever old-age pensions in this country. The then Liberal Government planned to finance them by increasing taxes, including the basic rate of income tax, which would rise from the equivalent of 5p in the pound to 6p in the pound, and a tax on the wealthiest landowners. Opposition from such landowners was so strong, however, that in November of that year, the Finance Bill was rejected by the House of Lords by 350 votes to 75.

The issue of constitutional reform and the role of the House of Lords was then centre stage in the January 1910 general election. Following it, there were then 70 days of debate and 554 Divisions on the Budget before the House of Lords was forced to accept it.

A second general election was required in the same year to give authority for a Parliament Bill to curb the powers of veto by the House of Lords. The Parliament Act 1911 did not attempt to change the composition of the House of Lords, but the preamble to the Act stated the intention

“to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis,”

although it recognised that,

“such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation.”

We have been very patient in seeking to bring an end to the hereditary route to membership of this House over these 110 years. Perhaps only in this place could more than a century be considered too short a timescale in which to agree necessary changes. Yet it is clear from previous debates and votes that the overwhelming will of this House is to end the farcical process of holding by-elections to provide for more hereditary Peers.

On this issue, the great efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, follow those of my late and much respected noble friend Lord Avebury, who introduced a Private Member’s Bill on the subject in 2006. Why have we not made more progress on an issue which had overwhelming support in this House and in the other place when it was last tested?

The first reason is simply that a small group, almost all of them hereditary Peers, whose own position is not threatened by this Bill, have nevertheless put forward completely bogus arguments and multiple irrelevant amendments and used anti-democratic filibuster techniques to block its progress. The second reason is, of course, that the Government are not really interested either in reducing the size of this House, or in ending in good time the principle of having hereditary membership within our Parliament. They should have the honesty to say so but should also show the democratic commitment to allow time for both Houses to determine the issue.

It was the late Robin Cook who pointed out when he was working on a cross-party basis and championing Lords reform in 2005 that, as he put it:

“Only we and Lesotho reserve seats for hereditary chieftains”.


We should support this Bill today so that this could no longer be said in future.

We have heard much in previous debates about “gentlemen’s agreements” and “binding arrangements”, but the overarching principle is that no Parliament can bind another; otherwise, what point would there be in holding general elections, if major issues have been permanently determined by previous Parliaments?

We should not, in these considerations, again allow the time of the House to be wasted with hundreds of irrelevant amendments. Some of the individual amendments were nine pages long, trying to amend a one-page, two-clause Bill. Many of these amendments were not moved and there never was any intention of moving them; they served only to filibuster the debate and prevent progress.

No existing Member of the House—and I accept that we have some very excellent hereditary Members—should feel threatened by this Bill. The 203 people on the waiting list for hereditary vacancies—all men, I believe—have other routes to membership, including through the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission and the patronage of the Prime Minister.

If we respect this House—and many of our debates have spoken about respect for the House—we should let the will of the House prevail on this issue. Let the Bill complete all its stages. We should let the House of Commons vote again on this issue. That would allow people to see who is defending the hereditary principle, but I suspect that the Government would not like this to be known.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a point which I had not previously considered. If the agreement is being breached in that respect, it is an important matter and I would agree with her that it should be properly adhered to. I am glad to have her support on the importance of adhering to agreements, which should apply also to hereditary by-elections.

My second point is this. What approach should we adopt to constitutional reform? There are broadly two approaches: one, which normally prevails particularly on those Benches but among some on this side of the House, is what Hayek calls the constructivist approach—the belief that any measure should be evaluated against some abstract principle, such as democracy, equality or diversity, and that if it does not conform to them, it should be radically changed until it does. If we apply that to this place, the only way to achieve representative diversity would be the jury principle, and all of us would have to go unless our number happened to be picked in a random choice of people to replace us. Certainly, if democracy is to prevail, we would have to move to an elected House—something which I think would be foolish and of which the lower House would not approve. The alternative approach is the pragmatic approach that tends to prevail on these Benches. Does it work in practice? I submit that this House does work in practice. It works in practice for the contribution from the hereditaries—that does not prevent it working in practice. If things work in practice, we should not try to mend that which is not broken. The view of the constructivists, of course, is that it may work in practice but it does not work in principle—a foolish attitude if ever there was one, and one which I would not advocate.

Finally, does the House of Lords as it is composed and with a hereditary component work in practice? When I was Secretary of State, I would always have a Minister in my team in the Lords. The Whips would present me with various names and I would look through their qualifications, experience and so on and choose one. As it happened, most times I chose a hereditary. I did not know whether they were hereditaries or life Peers—I am afraid I was not acquainted with many Members of this House at that stage. I chose them on the basis of their experience and what I knew of their abilities, and there was a disproportionate number of them among the hereditaries Peers, who, for one reason or another—perhaps because they had known from birth that they would one day, if their father died before they did and their elder brothers predeceased them and so on, come to this place—had prepared for this by taking an interest in public affairs, but not driven purely by the sort of ambition that drove me and others who have come through the more disreputable process of going through the lower House.

We should recognise that hereditary by-elections are a valuable source of experienced, committed, prepared men and women—it would be nice if there were more women, and that is one of the more powerful arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has used.

I remind the House that we made an agreement, and we should abide by that agreement. If we do not abide by that agreement, we are opening up to not abiding by other agreements, and I shall remember that when debates take place on the Northern Ireland protocol. We can either say that abstract principles apply, in which case this whole place has to be radically transformed, or we can say that we will go with what works and stick with what works, and not waste our time and unnecessarily change it.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

If the noble Lord is so convinced by the principle that agreements, once made, are binding and can never be changed, should he not then accept that the European Communities Act 1972 was a binding agreement in which we joined the European Union which could therefore never be changed by a future Parliament?

[Lord Lilley]

With respect, that is a silly point because we left under the treaty of whatever it is, which had Article 50 which allowed members states to leave.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Lord Rennard Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 30th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, the Bill gives more power to Boris Johnson and less to Parliament. It is therefore in my view a Bill that Parliament should oppose, and I remain surprised that it has so much support from the Labour Benches. When Labour left government in 2010, the Labour Party manifesto of that year was committed to the principle of fixed-term Parliaments. Labour’s opposition to the 2011 Fixed-term Parliaments Bill was clearly tactical, and the argument that it then made against it was that the proposed term should have been four years, not five.

No athlete in a race would be expected to fire the starting gun. The power to fire such a gun in the race to win seats in a general election is, I believe, a strong one. While criticising aspects of the 2011 Act, the Institute for Government said that

“for all its faults, the FTPA does stop an incumbent government from timing an election for maximum partisan advantage, resulting in a fairer contest.”

Those of us on either side of the debates on the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in 2011 were proved to be wrong in certain respects. Some of us thought that it would mean that Parliaments would generally last for five years in future. Others thought that Parliament would not be able to provide for early elections. But the general elections of 2017 and 2019 proved that we were both wrong. But I believe that the principle should remain that Parliament should decide whether there is to be an election outside an agreed regular timescale, and that a significant majority should be required for it to happen.

In our debates this afternoon, we have considered at some length issues of electoral advantage. I have great respect for the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, and his experience as Cabinet Secretary, but, as I understand the political system, it was never the role of the Cabinet Secretary to run a party’s election campaign. Those of us who have run them would say that control over the timing of the election confers a very significant advantage to that party, and those of us who have run election campaigns with very limited war chests would say that you are at a very considerable disadvantage if you do not have control or knowledge of when the election will take place.

The principles introduced in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act have actually proved practical for the Parliaments and Assemblies in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. I should point out that they were legislated for by the Labour Government after 1997. These principles also proved to be effective for every single local authority in the United Kingdom. The Parliament that agreed them for the governance of these places should agree them for itself.

The 2011 Act was not without faults, of course. As it was initially proposed, the 55% threshold for immediate Dissolution was a short-term fix to suit the coalition at the time—and I said so. It would have been better to have followed, straightaway, the rules that Parliament had previously set in Scotland and Wales, which require a two-thirds majority for an immediate Dissolution. Those rules have proved effective there, and the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill was changed before it become an Act.

Another problem with it was the lack of clarity over what would happen in the fortnight after a Government lost confidence when there was not a two-thirds majority for an immediate Dissolution. Again, the principle of elected Members electing the Prime Minister should have been adopted, as it was agreed by this Parliament under a Labour Government for the Parliaments of Scotland and Wales. This power might allow our Parliament to remove an incumbent Prime Minister. It might allow another Prime Minister from the same or another party to serve in their place.

I am sorry that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, is not in his place; were he here, I would have pointed out to him that, had we had such a rule in 2019, perhaps he might have achieved his childhood ambition and become Prime Minister. He might have been chosen by the Members of the House of Commons at that time. Perhaps it might have been possible for people in Britain to be offered the choice in a referendum of the reality of Brexit, as opposed to the glossy packaging that suggested that there were no downsides to it. As in Scotland and Wales, where the elected Members choose the First Minister, such an arrangement would, in my view, avoid the potential of dragging the monarchy into politics in an unfortunate way. Instead, we had a general election in 2019 on an entirely false prospectus—namely, that there was an “oven-ready” deal.

Another problem that we later identified with the 2011 Act was that it left in place the very short timetable of 17 working days for the conduct of an election campaign. This was no longer practical in the era of widespread postal voting, including from abroad, and with many people still needing to register to vote once a general election was called. This problem with the election timetable was eventually addressed in the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, which introduced a timetable of 25 working days, and I am pleased that the Government recently accepted that this timetable must stay in place.

There were attempts in the other place to revert to the previous 17 working day timetable for general elections. Huge concerns were expressed by the bodies representing electoral registration officers and the suppliers of electoral materials such as ballot papers about a potential change to allow fewer than 25 working days to conduct general election campaigns. The Electoral Commission in its briefing on the Bill chose to highlight why a minimum of 25 working days is needed for general election campaigns. Postal voting has become much more widespread since it became an option for everyone in 2000. Many people need time to apply to vote by post, and virtually no local authorities accept electronic applications to do so. Time is needed for applications to vote by post, for postal vote packages to be sent out, and for them to be returned by polling day. This is especially true for UK voters living overseas, including members of our Armed Forces serving abroad.

A final reason why the longer timetable is needed is that, as the Electoral Commission has pointed out, 9 million people in the UK are not registered to vote and should be, or are incorrectly registered. Some 60% of people think that voter registration is automatic. They are wrong, but electoral registration should be automatic, as the right to vote is not something that you should have to apply for. Were we to introduce such a system, the calling of such elections and the fairness of them would be greatly improved.

Integrity of Electoral Processes

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, it is of course always a great pleasure for me to follow my noble friend Lord Tyler, and it is with considerable sadness that I now do so for the last time.

It was in 1964, 58 years ago, that my noble friend was first elected to the Devon County Council and became the youngest councillor in the country. In February 1974, he was elected as the Liberal MP for the Bodmin constituency. He won then by just nine votes, then narrowly lost in the October election by just 665 votes. Many people might have given up politics at that point—but not Lord Tyler.

He fought the Beaconsfield parliamentary by-election in 1982. He came a strong second, easily consigning to third place the new young Labour candidate—one Tony Blair. In 1983 and 1987, he organised the general election tours for David Steel. He became chair of the Liberal Party, while I was one of its campaign officers, and we had high hopes for the then Liberal/SDP Alliance. But at the end of that decade, my party hit the rocks in the European elections of 1989.

Sensing the national disaster ahead, I decided to abandon what was happening at my party HQ and began making the first of my many campaign visits to Cornwall to support my noble friend’s campaign there to try to become the MEP. Again, he did not win, but, after a campaign in which I worked closely with his election agent, Dame Annette Penhaligon, he was the only Liberal Democrat in the country to achieve second place in that election, polling over 30% of the vote, compared to just 6% for my party nationally. Our campaign, including the distribution of over 250,000 tabloid newspapers in his support, set in motion the process which eventually resulted in every seat in Cornwall being held by a Lib Dem MP.

In 1992, I helped him to win the North Cornwall constituency, which now included the town of Bodmin. He later became the Chief Whip in the Commons for my party, while I was its director of campaigns and elections. We worked very closely together with the late and much missed Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon.

We then became colleagues here when he retired from the other place in 2005. We worked together on many aspects of reform to your Lordships’ House, seeking, as he said, to go much further than we were able. We worked together to try to establish the principle of fairness in the funding of elections nationally, and to defend the principle of there being a level playing field in constituency campaigns, and we have worked to try to reduce the number of people unable to participate in our democracy because they are not registered to vote, to prevent the Government changing the rules of elections in favour of their own party, and to protect the independence and role of the Electoral Commission.

My noble friend’s debate today is very timely. Never before have a Government sought to gain control of the independent Electoral Commission, to change spending rules to enable marginal seats to be bought, and blatantly to increase the power that comes with millions of pounds rather than with millions of votes.

We will greatly miss my noble friend in the debates ahead, we thank him for his many contributions, and we are most grateful to Lady Tyler for everything that she has done in support of him, his constituents, and the cause of democracy.

National Insurance Numbers: Electoral Register

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rennard]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in ensuring that details on how to join the electoral register are included with the notices informing young people of their National Insurance numbers.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con) [V]]

My Lords, Cabinet Office officials have continued to work with colleagues in HMRC on the inclusion of additional information on registering to vote in letters issuing national insurance numbers. I am assured that this change will be implemented by HMRC shortly—at the very latest, in October.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, I am delighted if progress is being made, but I remind the Minister that, on 8 October last year, the House voted overwhelmingly for the Government to consider further action to get more young people registered to vote. On 26 November last year, he said that this was happening, but it has taken eight months since then. Why has it taken so long for the Government to consider adding perhaps a dozen words to a form in order to encourage more young people to register to vote?

[Lord True (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the Government are committed to making registration as easy as possible, and we encourage everyone eligible to register to do so. I stand by those earlier statements. Due to internal processes, there have been delays in implementing the changes to the letter. There are HMRC processes in place to implement change that involve HMRC’s IT partners, but I repeat that HMRC has assured us that this matter will be implemented by October.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I will not repeat the answer I have just given. The commission is an independent, advisory, non-departmental body. It has an important role, but the sovereign, on the advice of the Prime Minister, formally confers all peerages. It is the Prime Minister who must advise on that. Ultimately, the Prime Minister is responsible for the way in which he conducts that duty.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, further to his reply to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, the Minister will be aware that the reason the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, put forward by Lord Steel, did not include the abolition of by-elections for hereditary Peers was the threat of filibuster and of the tabling of hundreds of irrelevant and repetitive amendments to avoid this House being able to express its wish on the issue and allow the vote to go to the other place to consider it. Does the Minister consider that a legitimate tactic?

[Lord True (Con)]

The noble Lord writes his own history. I observe that, given your Lordships’ interest in the Burns committee recommendations, perhaps the Liberal Democrats should do something about their own numbers.

Representation of the People (Proxy Vote Applications) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for answering my Written Question on Monday about absent voting arrangements. I am grateful to him for confirming that

“The law does not require applicants to verify their identity or address when applying for a postal or proxy vote”.


The regulations that we are considering today require little debate. In the circumstances of the pandemic, it is right to allow people to appoint someone as a proxy voter for them as late as 5 pm on polling day. But other measures could have been taken to ensure that everyone entitled to vote was able to do so. We have seen in the most recent Dutch elections this week that polling stations were opened for three days to help more people to vote without the risk of queues and crowding. Our Government are limiting increased access to voting to this very modest measure.

My concern is that some local authorities may act against the clear intention of these regulations and existing legislation about proxy voting, and try to suppress the right of voters to participate in this way or by post. The Minister will no doubt be aware that the local council in Woking has been advising potential proxy and postal voters that they should provide proof of identity with photo ID and proof of residence. People not providing this are threatened with consequences, and only in the very small print does the documentation admit that applications will be processed even if the photo ID and proof of residence is not provided.

Does the Minister think that local authorities should be free to imply incorrectly that there are such requirements to obtain a postal or proxy vote? Does he accept that such barriers may discriminate against groups such as young people who may not yet have passports or a driving licence, and who may not have utility bills addressed to them personally? Is not this a classic attempt at voter suppression of the kind that we have become familiar with seeing from the Republicans in the United States? Will the Minister work with the Electoral Commission, the Association of Electoral Administrators, SOLACE and others to advise local authorities that they should proceed exactly as set out in these regulations and other legislation, and not seek to impose additional barriers to make it harder for people entitled to vote to participate in the elections? Does he think that the Electoral Commission may need greater powers to enforce standardisation of best practice consistent with the law for electoral administrators issuing application forms concerned with electoral registration and absent voting?

The Minister helpfully replied to me on Monday to say that electoral registration officers

“do not have the power to reject or refuse an absent vote application if the applicant does not provide additional proof of identity or residence”.

Will he therefore prevent local authorities such as Woking Borough Council effectively taking the law into their own hands in such matters and seeking to exclude some of those people on the electoral rolls from being able to participate in elections? I have heard today from the Electoral Commission, which advises that local authorities should not imply that this is the case. I hope that the Minister will work with the commission to make sure that this practice is ended in the Woking borough and not begun elsewhere.

Covid-19: May Elections

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly agree with my noble friend’s final comments about electoral services officers. I am also grateful for the interventions he and others made. The Government are always willing to engage with noble Lords on these and other matters. There is a collective will across the House to make sure that elections can go ahead safely.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, the easing of lockdown restrictions in general is obviously welcome in the run-up to the scheduled elections but does the Minister accept that if, for any reason, the easing has to be halted or reversed, there may be a case for seeking all-party agreement for the postponement of the elections? In the meantime, in relation to the advice about what is appropriate for campaigning in those elections, does he accept that the only way in which to reassure people that the decision is based on scientific, health and medical advice, not simply the interests of his party, is to publish that advice?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have published a delivery plan. I am sorry that the noble Lord suggested that there was a party advantage here. Our hope is to assist all people of all parties and none to fight an election and record their democratic wishes. The Government believe that these elections can be delivered safely. We co-operate with, and will talk to, other political parties, and I can assure the House that the medical officers have advised Ministers in drawing up the delivery plan.

Political Parties: Expenditure Limits

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rennard]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Ministerial Statement by Lord True on 3 December 2020 (HLWS610), what representations they have received in support of their plans to increase the permitted expenditure limits for political parties at general elections; and what will be the uprating in line with inflation for national spending limits.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government engaged with political parties on spending limits last year. A range of views were received and, following that engagement, we uprated candidate spending limits at local elections in England. We have committed to reviewing candidate and party spending limits at reserved polls this year with a view to uprating them in line with inflation. We will not comment on specific figures until after this planned review has been carried out.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

The Minister knows that this Question does not relate to candidate spending or to local election spending. It relates specifically to national election spending. Perhaps I can help him. The figure for inflation since 2000 is approximately 69%. The figures published by the Electoral Commission show that increasing national party expenditure limits would benefit only the Conservative Party across Great Britain. Taking these together with other proposals under consideration, but not widely known, to allow national party spending to be targeted more easily at marginal constituencies, are the Government not now ending any concept of the level playing field in elections?

[Lord True (Con)]

No, my Lords. I am not certain whether the noble Lord speaks for his party in his Question or in the rather intemperate letter that he sent to the Minister for the Constitution on this matter. Spending limits have been unchanged for national elections since 2000. Failing to update them is actually changing policy by steadily reducing spending limits in real terms.

House of Lords: Size

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

Absolutely not, my Lords. The perception of the House depends on the behaviour and conduct of the House. I am not going to follow, as I refused to before, any kind of ad hominem attack on any new Member—I welcome them all. As for the comment on Brexiteers, I did not notice a surfeit of those before the last election.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

The Prime Minister has clearly reneged on the agreement of his predecessor to help curb the size of the House of Lords. He recently overruled the Appointments Commission over a major donor to his party. What does the Minister estimate to be the effect on the House of Lords of the recently announced plans to increase the maximum permitted expenditure by political parties in general elections by a massive 69%?

[Lord True (Con)]

I may be a little obtuse but I do not see the direct connection between general election expenditure and the House of Lords. The House of Lords, for which I have great reverence, is, contrary to many of the things said publicly, extremely good value for the outstanding service that it gives to the country.