Representation of the People (Election Expenses Exclusion) Order 2013

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, together with some noble Lords present in Grand Committee today, I was present at the launch of this fund last year. Those of us who were there celebrating the work of the coalition Government, the Speaker’s Conference and, especially, my noble friend Lynne Featherstone MP, who led the work up to the launch of the fund, were horrified to discover that there might be a loophole whereby other candidates might be able to challenge any grant made by this fund as part of election expenses. That was certainly never intended, not least because the representation of disabled people is very low in elected office, whether at Westminster, on councils, in devolved Administrations or any other elected office—although I was glad to hear my noble friend saying that it did not apply for individual elections, such as those for police commissioners and, I presume, elected mayors.

I shall not repeat the points that the noble Lord, Lord Low, made, but my real anxiety is about the Electoral Commission’s concern about the phrase,

“barriers to seeking elected office”,

being wide and novel wording. It has to be, given how wide and novel varying disabilities are. We cannot legislate at this stage for every dot and comma of what is necessary. The point has already been made about Braille leaflets for checking before an ordinary leaflet is printed; about the need for British Sign Language interpreters; about having a palantypist at a conference where someone who may or may not be reliant on BSL but may be reliant on lip reading cannot keep turning around to see contributions from the back of a conference room. One young candidate whom I talked to a couple of weeks ago said that he had had to get a very expensive modification to his wheelchair. The first time when he stood for Parliament, he was invisible because his head was always too low; now he can come right up to shoulder height and have conversations with people. Suddenly, he has become visible. I am not suggesting that he would have made an application to the fund, but the fund needs to be able to think as flexibly as possible to overcome the barriers, and in this young man’s case a very physical barrier to having a dialogue with his electorate.

The other reason for the fund is that because candidates are not employed there is no other recourse to public funds for any costs associated with their disability. Just as an aside—this does not relate to this order—there is a problem for Members of the House of Lords with disabilities, because they, too, are not employed and there is no access to public funds for them if they need adaptations in their workplace here.

I end by saying that the Liberal Democrats have taken the issue of the under-representation of disabled candidates very seriously. We have launched a leadership programme for candidates from a range of under-represented groups, with 10% of places on the scheme reserved for those with disabilities. In the first 40 recruited, five have disabilities, some visible and some invisible. We hope that by the time we get to the other side of the general election, we will have some more disabled MPs in place to represent the wider country. In particular, I am looking forward to the first BSL first language MP, or, frankly, even Peer, to be able to work alongside us in creating legislation. It is a real disappointment that there has not been one to date.

I have two questions for the Minister. Given the Electoral Commission’s concerns about challenge and that some grants have already been awarded, will the order be retrospective? Secondly, Scope has raised an issue about the expenses repayment; the 35-day deadline may be very tight in some circumstances, particularly in relation to the short campaign of a general election, where deadlines are actually very important, and they may suddenly find that they have it. Is there any scope—I am sorry to use that word—to make it slightly more lenient or generous?

Finally, I hope that on the sunset clause of June 2014 the Government will ensure that there is no gap if they decide to move ahead. At that point, most candidates in key seats will have been selected and will be fighting the long campaign for election in the general election of 2015. It would be absolutely appalling if there were a gap in their ability to apply for grants.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, in responding to points from the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we hope that they are very successful in selecting their candidates. Noble Lords will not be surprised, however, if I do not necessarily wish them success in being elected. But it is a challenge to my party to make sure that we can similarly find some candidates. It will also come as no surprise to the Committee that we broadly and warmly welcome this draft order which, as the Minister says, will enable disabled candidates to apply for and use the fund specifically created to encourage them to be candidates by excluding those moneys from the schedule of election expenses. It is clearly a shame that it was not thought of when the fund was established, but we are pleased, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, said, that it will be done by 26 March, in time for this year’s election. Unsurprisingly, the charities representing people with disabilities, most notably Scope, are also supportive of the thrust of the measure.

The Minister will have read the discussions of the House of Commons committee on this. Perhaps it is a bit late to regret, along with it, that the fund does not cover parish council elections. Indeed, for many people, that is their first attempt at the ballot box, and it might have encouraged more disabled people to make that same first attempt. However, this is a pilot, and we hope that if it is successful it will be rolled out in a comprehensive way.

My questions, therefore, are not about what might have been but about this specific order, which allows the fund expenditure to be excluded. Will the Minister confirm that anything that the fund agrees to finance will then automatically be covered by the exclusion? In other words, there will be no additional formality to be gone through? We do not want the fund saying that it is covered and then being told afterwards that it is not. There needs to be just one lot of decision-takers, and I assume that it will be the fund decision-takers. It would be useful to have that confirmed.

What is being done to promote awareness of the fund? In preparation for today, I did the usual thing and tried to find out about it. I found it impossible to locate the fund through the Electoral Commission’s less-than-helpful website. Google was rather more helpful and got me on to the relevant site. Given that the Electoral Commission wants to be involved in this, I would have thought that it would do more to make knowledge of the fund better known, rather than simply being able to find out about this specific order, which is not of interest to disabled people once it is done.

Information on the fund itself was not brilliant. I could not get hold of the application form from the website although it has now been sent to me. It also was not clear how quickly a decision would be made, which I should have thought was also quite important for candidates to decide whether to go ahead. They need to know that before they start spending too much of their own money. Although we are keen for the Electoral Commission to be involved in encouraging and helping disabled people to be candidates, we hope that it will smarten up its own access via the web in time to do this.

We very much support the exclusion of fund expenditure but rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we wonder whether this leaves a transparency gap. It would be useful to know what disclosure of such funds and their use will be made. Mention was made of a voluntary system, and I wonder whether that is sufficient or whether the fund should itself be transparent. It would be useful to know the Government’s thinking on that. Finally, can the Government assure us that if this pilot proves a success, it will be rolled out fully and with money following intent? As we know, the groups who will benefit from this are highly underrepresented at the moment. Indeed, I cannot believe that this Government would have so undermined the lives of so many disabled people as they have done both under the Welfare Reform Act and now the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill had we had more people as MPs, or indeed Peers, but especially MPs, from those particularly affected groups. We very much want this fund to be a success and we hope that its administrators, the Electoral Commission and the Government will play a very full part in helping disabled people to find out about the fund and then stand for and be elected to public office. I am sorry, but I hope that they will all be Labour if they get elected.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank those who have spoken for their general welcome for this order. I stress that this is a pilot and an experiment in some ways. I also stress that it is absolutely an all-party initiative. We very much hope, as the noble Baroness has suggested, that all parties will want to take this up and make use of it, and that part of the way in which information will spread out is that all parties will wish to inform their local associations to look more actively for potential candidates for whom this would make the crucial difference.

In the disability world, the communications strategy is already a good deal better known than in the general outside world. I had not heard of it until a few weeks ago but I am told that the Government have a comprehensive communications strategy in place. There have been a number of news stories in the press, and in tweets, blogs and the like, targeted very much at the disability community. This will continue as the pilot rolls on.

As for the question of what happens in August 2014, this is a pilot over which we will want to consult as we go along, as well as seeing how many people come forward. Once the SI ends, we will ensure that there is a smooth transition to the new regime, if by then a decision is made that the fund is seen as worthwhile and is to be extended. So far there have been about 30 applications for the fund, and the average per application is between £4,000 and £6,000. We are not talking about enormous amounts. Noble Lords will recall that there is a £20,000 maximum per application under the fund at the moment. However, we hope that this will be shown to make a crucial difference in making it easier for people with different disabilities to put themselves forward for election.

In the pilot we decided not to include parish councils. A great many parish councils do not have elections. At my party’s spring conference, I talked to a local activist from West Yorkshire. He told me how deeply unpopular he has made himself with a number of other politicians in his ward, because he keeps insisting that there should be elections for the parish council. Others think that elections are an unnecessary expense and that co-option is much to be preferred, this being a predominantly Conservative parish council. Perhaps one of the questions that we will investigate and discuss further, and come to a different decision on as we move forwards from the pilot, is whether we include parish council elections, in which many people first cut their electoral teeth, as the noble Baroness rightly says.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asks whether it will be retrospective. The answer is that it will not, but those who have already approached the fund for support for this coming May’s elections will be able to roll their applications in and it will not go back further than that.