Political Parties, Elections and Referendums (Civil Sanctions) Order 2010

Lord Bach Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Lords Chamber

The introduction of these new disciplines and the failure to make progress on the bigger reforms threaten to discourage further individual, voluntary involvement in the democratic process, as the noble Lord, Lord Martin, said. Our political parties are wholly dependent on the commitment, enthusiasm and self-esteem of volunteers. Truly active involvement in the public life of our country, through the political parties, is an essential element in the so-called big society. The order is, of course, useful but it is a tiny answer to a much bigger problem.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I shall be fairly brief but I cannot resist commenting that it is slightly ironic that we should be debating this matter on the afternoon when staff in the Ministry of Justice—whether front-line staff or those who work in the main office—are being decimated by a Statement made in another place. The staff who produced this order and the Bill, which became the Act, are the ones who will have to suffer. It seems to me ironic that we should discuss such a good order on the very day when they are to be decimated as a result of government policy.

I thank the Minister for outlining so clearly and in such detail the statutory instrument that we are being asked to approve. We support the order, which is hardly surprising as it flows from two Acts of Parliament introduced by the previous Government. As we have heard, the civil sanctions were introduced by the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008, and these regulations flow from the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009. As it happens, I played a small part in taking both those Bills through this House, so I am interested in the order which flows from those Acts.

The use of civil sanctions was not approved without controversy in this House when it considered the Bill. Their use, as opposed to criminal proceedings, is a flexible, sensible and proportionate step for many of the offences—for that is what they are—committed under the 2000 and 2009 Acts. As has already been said, criminal proceedings are appropriate and necessary in cases where a person has acted in a knowing or reckless way, but I hope that those cases are rare.

I say this with perhaps more feeling than some. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on this and, no doubt, that of the noble Lord, Lord Martin. I was a constituency Labour Party treasurer for many years and now, for my sins, I am a chairman of a constituency Labour Party.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Bach]

I am very grateful to the House for that acknowledgement. Both as treasurer and chairman I could be affected by the legislation that is now on the statute book.

I congratulate the Electoral Commission on the note it sent to noble Lords on this order, but I invite it to use its considerable powers—and they are considerable, as has been pointed out in the debate—with care, tolerance and humanity, bearing in mind the voluntary nature of so much political activity in this country. We support the order.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I shall reply briefly to this debate. I am sure that we are all impressed by the climb of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, from treasurer to party chairman. Disraeli called that climbing the greasy pole.

I shall also respond briefly to the noble Lord’s point about the Ministry of Justice. Twelve years ago, I served on an inquiry, initiated by this House and chaired by the late Lord Slynn, into whether the ethos of public service was still alive and well in our Civil Service after the changes that had taken place in the 1980s and 1990s. Our report stated that yes, it really was alive and well—people in our public service were motivated by a sense of public duty and public service. Since returning into government five months ago, my experience has been such that I would not change a word of that report. I have been much moved and impressed by the dedication of the public servants with whom I have worked at all levels. I am well aware that percentages are meaningless for the individuals concerned. For them, the unemployment is 100 per cent. Therefore, we will try to manage the changes that we judge to be inevitable with a duty of care to those people and with as much humanity as we possibly can.

I am very familiar with this topic because more than a decade ago I was on the Benches opposite arguing about the Bill and many of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Martin, raised. I remember the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, and myself, as two former party officials, pointing out that the Bill was couched in terms that made the treasurership of a political party sound like one of those golden prizes in politics, whereas the hard truth is that it is usually given to someone who has inadvertently left the room at the wrong time. It was argued at the time that the commission would have all kinds of talents except perhaps the most valuable talent of all—the ability to run elections at the sticky end for the political parties. The most recent appointments to the commission have been an attempt to remedy that, because the nominees have come from the political parties. I hope that that answer meets the point that was raised.

The noble Lord, Lord Martin, and my noble friend Lord Tyler asked whether the heavy hand of sanctions would come down on inexperience or on genuine mistakes. The Electoral Commission, in putting forward how it wants to approach these matters, said:

“We recognise that many of those responsible for complying with the law on party and election finance are volunteers … The new civil sanctions will allow us to use more constructive approaches to secure compliance in cases where the law has been broken. For example, we could issue a statutory notice designed to improve future compliance, rather than just imposing a less flexible penalty such as a fine.”

As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, a lot of work was done on this before the general election, and this order reflects that. The thinking behind it is that the Electoral Commission was faced with using either a tap on the wrist or a criminal prosecution. The order gives it a range of measures. What is in the order, and what is in the remarks that I made when I introduced it, is the point that the Electoral Commission is in no doubt that proportionality will be expected of it. With political experience in the commission, I hope that it will be able to use these powers with due proportionality and that there will be no sledgehammer, as the noble Lord, Lord Martin, and my noble friend Lord Tyler feared.

My only other point is in response to my noble friend Lord Tyler, who asked about the funding of political parties. This is a firm commitment in the coalition agreement. It was mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. I am tempted to say that the Government will move directly to the measure as soon as reform of the House of Lords has passed, but that might be seen as not the kind of commitment that the House is looking for. As my noble friend Lord Tyler said, noble Lords on all sides of the House know that in the previous Parliament we came very close to getting agreement on party funding. The coalition Government are committed to try again and we hope, as the Opposition are nodding vigorously, that if we initiate a new attempt to get agreement on party funding, we will succeed this time.

[Lord Bach]

I absolutely agree with everything that the noble Lord has said, but if he wants to know the reason why the talks on political funding failed—as Christopher Wren said when asked for what his monument would be—he should look around him. It is the people with whom he is in coalition who have prevented it happening.

[Lord McNally]

I would prefer to leave those matters to the historians. We are looking forward. The Committee on Standards in Public Life is making a report. The report to which my noble friend Lord Tyler referred is on my desk at the moment. I think that we have a really good chance of taking matters forward. As I have said before, all the major parties have at some time or other faced problems, embarrassments and difficulties because of our way of funding political parties. If we really apply ourselves early in this Parliament to the problem, we could and should find a solution.

I commend the order to the House. It will help the party activists. I finish by endorsing the comments made by my noble friend Lord Tyler and the noble Lords, Lord Martin and Lord Bach, who all have campaign medals as party activists. Nothing annoys me more during a general election than knocking on a door only to be told by some proud person that they never vote and that we are all in it for what we can get. We know that our democracy works because of the tens of thousands in every political party who are willing to do those hard, dull jobs such as sticking things through doors and knocking on the doors of perfect strangers to engage them in discussion. They are the people who make our democracy work. I pay tribute to them and hope that this order will make that voluntary work a little easier.