Local Government Elections

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, my intentions in taking part in the debate are dual. First, I want to endorse and support the concerns expressed by my noble friends Lord Greaves and Lord Rennard. But secondly, as always, I look forward to the Minister’s contribution with great interest; that is my principal reason for being here. I plead with him to adopt his now-usual practice of going off-piste. I do not know whether that expression was used in last night’s debate on the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill, but I was told that the Minister was particularly helpful to the House when he left his script. At one point, he said:

“I return to my script”.—[Official Report, 6/9/17; col. 2050.]


After that, things became less interesting, so I hope that he will adopt his previous attitude this afternoon.

I am reminded by my colleagues’ contributions of my own campaigning experience. It is important to recognise that no parties have found it easy to get the clear guidance they require on the issue of treating. I recall one of my first campaigns in Cornwall; I am not sure whether it was the successful or less successful of my early attempts to get elected to the House of Commons. On arrival at a small village on one of those wonderful Cornish hills where one went in at the first floor, the committee room seemed very quiet. There was nothing much going on and one rather sleepy person ticking some things off. I said to my wife, “It doesn’t look very busy here”, to which the sleepy individual replied, “You wait ‘til you see what’s going on downstairs.” Downstairs, seven or eight people were busily producing pasties and putting clotted cream on saffron cake. The significance of it was that they were not treating the electorate, because the two essential credentials for anybody applying for refreshment were that they had already voted and would help with knocking up voters later. Treating helpers is still a rather vague issue. I have not been so well-fed on the campaign trail since then, and indeed have never had to succumb to so many cups of tea—but in Cornwall in those days, one had to. One was always offered a cup of tea but not always the rather necessary forward motions that were required thereafter.

There is a very serious issue which I know the Minister understands: the coming together of a number of concerns about the electoral process, electoral law and the reputation of the whole of our democracy. I know the Minister shares our views on that because we have had many such discussions. The issue that my noble friend Lord Greaves referred to may be a comparatively small part of the overall picture, but at a time when Parliament and the body politic are having a reputational crisis following the referendum—and with the current state of interest taken by the public, particularly young voters, in how they are represented and, frankly, how for the past 10 years the media have approached the whole process in which we are engaged—there is a crisis. It is not good enough to say, “Well, we’ll get round to this one day.”

I refer to the answer that the Minister gave to my question yesterday. I asked, rather naively, whether the Law Commission report would result in a response from the Government,

“soon, shortly or in due course”.

In his inimitable way, the Minister said:

“It is more likely to be in due course”.—[Official Report, 6/9/17; col. 1951.]


It is now quite a long time since the Law Commission made important recommendations, to some of which my noble friend Lord Greaves referred. It was in February 2016. At the time, there was a specific recommendation that we needed a single electoral law. That is particularly appropriate given the recent experience of the Conservative Party with the differing treatment of national and local campaign expenditure. The Conservative Party itself expressed considerable concern back in June at the way in which two quite different statutes were involved in the process, and the lack of clarity and difficulty that all involved had with that.

The Minister, who I suspect is on our side on this, must somehow persuade his colleagues not just in the Cabinet Office but in No. 10 that, despite all the pressures from Brexit—indeed, perhaps because of them—Parliament must be given an opportunity to look holistically at bringing the electoral law up to date. The example that my noble friend gave is but one of many that cause media, public and local concern. The Minister is an adroit political manipulator and influencer in our curiously cumbersome political system and I beg him to do everything he can. He has been so effective in the past in getting people to take issues of this sort more seriously and give them greater priority. Yes, of course Parliament will have a full agenda but that does not mean that we cannot do anything else. The result of the efforts on Brexit and the extent to which the public are prepared to accept it may depend on the reputation of our political system, local and national. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some comfort that these issues are not being swept under the carpet but will be addressed with the priority that they require and deserve.