Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

But there are no limits to the number of organisations that are able to mount such campaigns. The Minister is rejecting the amendment that my noble friend has proposed, but he does not seem to have any other safeguards.

[Lord Grocott]

I put the question in a slightly different way. If the Minister is confirming what I think that he has been saying, it is really alarming. I was most interested in the earlier parts of the Bill. Whereas we all know that in a local election campaign for a particular Member in a particular constituency, there are controls over what each candidate can spend which have been there since about the 1870s, I think that that—not the figure, but the principle—is understandable, because a number of different choices are available: Labour, et cetera. In the case of whether there is or is not to be a recall, there are only two possible positions: you are for it or against it. You may be for it or against it for a variety of different reasons, but the decision to be made is binary, there are two choices.

It seems to me so fundamental as to be hardly worth stating that there must be a balance between the expenditure on the two sides of that simple argument. Is the Government’s position that there is no need to worry about that and that, on a range of different issues, one side in what I repeat is a binary decision can spend vastly greater sums of money than the other? Are the Government comfortable with that?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am saying on behalf of the Government that there can be more than one registered campaign group on either side or on both sides of the recall petition.

[Lord Grocott]

I just wanted to hear from the Government Front Bench that in this choice there could be vastly bigger sums of money spent on whether there should be a recall—or on whether there should not. As the Minister knows, I am not at all keen on the Bill, but I am keen that if that decision is made, there must be some equality of expenditure between the two sides of the argument. I find it incomprehensible if that is not the Government’s position.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have some experience of fighting elections in which I was fighting with an infinitely smaller budget than the other candidates. We are content that there should be more than one registered campaigner on either or both sides. In one recall petition, one side may have several groups and the other may not; in another, it may be the contrary side. That is the Government’s position.

[Lord Grocott]

So the answer to my question—the Minister can either confirm this or not—is that under the Bill, one side of the argument could spend vastly more than the other. Is the answer that yes, that is the Government’s position?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a precedent in electoral law for limiting the number of people who can be involved. Even at a referendum, where a lead campaigner is appointed, multiple campaigners can also separately campaign for one side or other, subject to the spending limits. So even in a referendum, others can come alongside for the game. We are not persuaded that the tighter limits and much tighter controls proposed are desirable or necessary on this occasion.