Election Law Reform

Debate between Ian C. Lucas and Alex Chalk

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) not only for giving an excellent speech, but for making such an important contribution to this critical field. People watching this from the Public Gallery, or perhaps reading the debate later, may be surprised to learn that these issues are of such seriousness that if candidates or their agents get them wrong, there is a decent possibility that the matter will be resolved with an individual standing up in court, potentially at risk of losing his liberty, his reputation and, indeed, his livelihood. If that is the consequence, it is critical that the legal landscape is clear, and I am afraid that I respectfully agree that it is not clear.

Let me give the House just one small example of how we find ourselves in a situation where people’s campaigning activity might owe more to their appetite for risk than to the correct campaigning message. In 2017 in Cheltenham, one of the issues was whether I should be putting out a leaflet that mentioned Cheltenham repeatedly throughout. Under one view, if it was simply a national message that would apply to Cheltenham, it could be national expenditure. But under another view, it could be allocated as local expenditure. People watching this should understand that if someone gets that judgment wrong, they could end up being prosecuted for breaking their limit.

I thought that there was a risk involved in allocating that as a national spend so I declined to do so, but others took an entirely different view, mentioned Cheltenham a lot and simply allocated the spending as a national spend. It turns out, however, that the Electoral Commission has decided after the event—through these provisional codes of conduct—that circumstances where the constituency is mentioned should be classed as a local expense. Well, if that is right, the implications are absolutely enormous.

My hon. Friend has already delivered a devastating critique of the Electoral Commission, but one of my criticisms is that it is so slow to act. It knew about this situation in 2015, and yet two years later, when it came to the 2017 election, had it sorted the situation out? No. Had it provided any guidance? No. Candidates like me were simply left to fend for ourselves and make a judgment based on our appetite for risk. I had zero appetite for risk, so I took a cautious approach; others did not, and the net effect was that there was not a level playing field. If the Electoral Commission is not there to ensure a level playing field, what on earth is it there to do?

[Ian C. Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point. I am a member of the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and I am particularly interested in this debate because of the inquiry that we have been carrying out into fake news. One issue that is crucial in all this, but that we have not really discussed today, is the advent of social media campaigning. If we are talking about not being up to speed, I have been on a huge learning journey on the Committee since I was re-elected in 2017. Frankly, I am sure that most of the Members of the House will not be aware of the scale of change that has happened in this area in recent years. The issue regarding local and national spend that the hon. Gentleman mentioned is just one of those changes. We need urgently to reform the law to take account of what actually happens in campaigns today.

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good and fair point, but I would say that the law will inevitably struggle to keep up with every last twist and turn. That is one of the reasons that we need to have an Electoral Commission that is agile and nimble, and can provide assistance to candidates. My first criticism of the Electoral Commission is that it has singularly failed to show that agility and nimbleness. That is not simply an academic criticism; it is echoed in how elections are run, and it means that we do not have a level playing field.