Electoral Conduct (Discrimination)

David Burrowes Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Natascha Engel]

Absolutely. As we move towards a general election in precisely a year’s time, we increasingly have to deal with offensive comments. From the outset, the inquiry made it clear that we prize above all else freedom of speech and people’s ability to say even offensive things, but also that we wanted to identify the line between speaking freely and being not just offensive but discriminatory.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her fine chairmanship of the inquiry, on which I was proud to serve. On local elections, there is so much more to do. A candidate in Enfield made appalling racist comments, for example. He resigned, but things nevertheless got to that stage and appropriate action was taken. The strongest words in the report focused on the Equality and Human Rights Commission for dereliction of duty in preventing discrimination during election campaigns. What does the hon. Lady have to say about more needing to be done, particularly by the EHRC?

--- Later in debate ---

[Natascha Engel]

Absolutely. All of us on the committee were surprised at the attitude of the EHRC, especially as their evidence was initially positive and constructive.

[Mr Burrowes]

I hope that the Minister will make at least one point clear to us. The EHRC says that it wants an instruction from the Government, and the Government say that it is properly a matter for the EHRC. We need clarity to ensure that we do not drop the ball and that previous good work is carried forward. We must be able at least to sort that out today.

[Natascha Engel]

Yes. I am going to skip around a bit and get hopelessly lost, so I might end up not doing all the bits that I wanted to, but I want to clarify that point. After the publication of the report, we had meetings with each of the different agencies that had given evidence and that we felt could do something to help. We have already mentioned the political parties, which must be the driving force, but all the other agencies were keen to help and open to recognising that there was a problem—that things were not working as well as they might once have done and certainly could work in the future.

Our issue with the EHRC was that it is the only organisation out of all those that came to give evidence to have one of those overarching umbrella roles. Obviously, the Commission for Racial Equality morphed into the EHRC, and we were sad to see that a lot of the excellent work that had been done in the CRE had got lost, shelved or was not carried forward. Our meetings with the EHRC were all focused on its budget cuts, on how it could no longer be as proactive as it might like and on how it was far more focused on providing policy research or legal help for those bringing cases of discrimination; it did not see its role as being anything to do with ensuring that conduct during election time was free, fair and not discriminatory. That kind of umbrella organisation is needed to lead the way, and we felt that leadership was lacking. All the other organisations can do what they like, but they do it in silos; we need the EHRC to knit everything together, so that we can all work together harmoniously to ensure that elections are more fairly conducted. Both of the points made by my right hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman are enormously important.

We have a meeting with the Minister planned for June, and it would be enormously helpful if a senior member of the EHRC were present. We recognise what the EHRC was keen to point out—that it is independent of Government and it has a board that sets strategy and decides on what its budget is spent on; and, moreover, that the strategy has been set and the money allocated, and not for the work that we are doing—but if someone from the EHRC was present at our meeting in June and the problem is a lack of resourcing, we as parliamentarians might be able to help with that.