Elections Bill

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

I am going to let my noble friend the Minister answer all this in detail because I am not a government spokesman on this. I was merely offering my opinion on the timeframe. When we get to the stand part debate, I am going to offer some other opinions about why these statements are useful in the context of regulators.

My concern is to see that these statements are strategic in nature and that means not short term in nature. They should be seen in that context. The timeframe of five years is fine for that, but I am going to leave my noble friend the Minister to respond in more detail to the broader questions that the noble Lord has asked.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments may lead to some mitigation of the effects of the Government taking control of the strategy and policy of the Electoral Commission if the Bill is passed in its present form. If Clauses 14 and 15 are not taken out of the Bill, as they should be, we can still limit some of the damage by preventing the party in power continually changing the statement in accordance with its own interests.

Amendment 3 would not allow a new statement 12 months after the Act is passed, while Amendment 13 tests how often the Government might seek to change such a statement. As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, pointed out, the amendments probe the Government’s intention in relation to the timings and processes of the proposed strategy and policy statement to which the Electoral Commission will be subject. The governing party appears to want to emasculate the role of the independent watchdog.

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[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, I regret that, like the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, I was unable to attend the Second Reading debate. At the time I was on an aeroplane returning from work in the United States. However, I have read the full proceedings in Hansard with great care and I feel appropriately informed.

Moreover, some time spent in the United States has also given an added perspective on some of the measures in the Bill, for there is about it a definite odour of the Donald J Trump playbook. There is the whiff of voter suppression in the extra requirements being added for access to the franchise. There is a distinct stench of the politically partisan in the measures that undermine the independence of the Electoral Commission. But perhaps the strongest stink arises from changes in the franchise being imposed by the current majority party, without pre-legislative scrutiny or a Speaker’s Conference. This strikes at the foundations of our constitution, written and unwritten.

I predict that in due course, much as the late Enoch Powell predicted, Mr Johnson will be defeated in an election—and then there will be a, perhaps minor but none the less significant, online campaign claiming that the election was stolen or rigged. While it would be unfair to claim that the noble Lord, Lord True, had planted the seeds of such a threat to our democracy, he will have added a little natural fertiliser. In his speech introducing the Bill at Second Reading, he made much of the precautionary principle, and of taking steps to protect the integrity of elections from potential, if as yet hypothetical, threats. He did not, however, extend his precautionary principle to the measures in Clauses 14 and 15 that, as the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee stated, risk undermining public confidence in electoral outcomes by diminishing the independence of the Electoral Commission, both in perception and in reality.

As the late Lord Hailsham famously observed, this country is governed by an elected dictatorship. A Government with a substantial majority in the other place can do virtually what they please. That is why this House, with its, let us say, peculiar composition, has a particular responsibility to protect the constitution, written and unwritten, against partisan proposals by the governing party. Here, the discussion by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, of statements for regulators gives us a valuable insight, because, in this case, the statement is made by the regulated entity. It is as if one of the broadcasters could have a statement telling Ofcom to what it should have regard. The Secretary of State is a political figure. In the electoral arena, he is a regulated entity. He should not be in a position to provide advice of any sort to the regulator.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said at Second Reading,

“there is a constitutional necessity, in a system of democracy based on universal suffrage, that any electoral commission should be wholly and totally independent”.—[Official Report, 23/2/22; col. 239.]

By rejecting these clauses and affirming the independence of the Electoral Commission, this House will make a vital commitment to free and fair elections.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, in considering the Government’s plans to take more direct control of the Electoral Commission, we should go back to considering the consensus that existed when it was established. In 1998, the Committee on Standards in Public Life, then chaired by the late Lord Neill of Bladen, proposed the creation of an

“independent … Election Commission with widespread executive and investigative powers”.

Introducing the resulting legislation, the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, explained how the commission would

“undertake its key role at the heart of our electoral arrangements”.

He emphasised that

“the commission must be as independent of the Government of the day as our constitutional arrangements allow, and it must be answerable directly to Parliament and not to Ministers”.

On behalf of the Conservative Opposition in the other place, Mr Robert Walter, then said:

“The Opposition have always made it clear that we support the recommendations of the Neill committee and that we shall support the legislation that implements the report”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/1/2000; cols. 42-109.]


In this House, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, introduced the legislation. He said that

“the commission will need to be seen to be scrupulously independent both of the government of the day and of the political parties”.

The consensus about the essential independence of the Electoral Commission was backed on that occasion by the late Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, a greatly respected Member on the Conservative Benches at the time. He said that

“there should be an electoral commission”,

but:

“There must be no possibility of the commissioners being \ As currently drafted the provisions in Part 3 of the Bill are not consistent with the Electoral Commission; cols. 1088-95.]


This principle of the Electoral Commission’s independence from the Government of the day survived five general elections. No previous Government before this one sought to change that principle. So I ask why, if we could not have “Tony’s cronies” overseeing the work of the Electoral Commission, we should then have Michael Gove overseeing it? To have any government Minister of any political party setting the overall strategy and policy for the Electoral Commission effectively ends its independence.

Since the last general election, the Conservative Party has been subjecting the Electoral Commission to undue pressure. In August 2000, the then Conservative Party co-chair Amanda Milling wrote in the Daily Telegraph that, if the Electoral Commission failed to make changes,

“then the only option would be to abolish it.”

That sounds pretty much like a threat to me. An independent election watchdog should not operate under such threats—not in a democracy.

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Moved by

[Lord Rennard]

18: After Clause 17, insert the following new Clause—
“Fines for electoral offences
(1) The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums (Civil Sanctions) Order 2010 (S.I. 2010/2860) is amended as follows. (2) In Schedule 1, paragraph 5, for “£20,000” substitute “£500,000, or 5% of the total spend by the organisation or individual being penalised in the election to which the offence relates, whichever is greater”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would allow the Electoral Commission to impose increased fines for electoral offences.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, one of the problems with the Bill is that the Government failed to make any changes at all to their proposals when the Committee on Standards in Public Life published its recent report, Regulating Election Finance. The whole purpose of setting up the CSPL was to meet Sir John Major’s aim of cleaning up the reputation of politics, including political finance. It now seems that the Government want not only to control the watchdog responsible but to make sure that it has no teeth. I believe the Government have a significant conflict of interest in this matter.

The CSPL report recommended that the Electoral Commission should be able to levy increased fines for serious electoral offences. It proposed a comprehensive package of measures to improve enforcement, which included decriminalising some offences and addressing an enforcement gap in the regime covering candidate spending. There are some matters that are best dealt with by regulators such as the Electoral Commission, which must be able to enforce fines, rather than necessarily by the police and criminal courts. As the commission itself says, there could be more proportionate ways for the commission to deal with breaches of political finance law.

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[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I have been corrected on two points, and I am glad that the world is full of Greens, I am sure, doing a lot of very good work.

There are over 350 political parties currently registered with the Electoral Commission, and many are predominantly made up of volunteers. While it is vital that the sanctioning regime is effective, it needs to be ensured that such deterrents do not cause a chilling effect on electoral participation and campaigning.

I have more of a general point to make, which I think chimes with the views expressed during this very short debate, following up on the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s recommendations. The Government are committed to making sure that elections are secure and fit for the modern age. As part of this, we keep the Electoral Commission’s role, powers and regulation under review regularly to ensure that it is able to discharge its responsibilities effectively and that electoral law can be upheld in the most effective manner.

As part of further work looking at the regulatory framework for elections beyond the Elections Bill, the Government intend to look at all the recommendations of the report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, alongside similar reports. These include a forthcoming report from the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee into the work of the Electoral Commission.

Regarding the question about statistics, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Khan, I will have to write to him about how many times the £20,000 has been levied. However, the fact that he says it has not been used lately suggests that there is not an urgent need to raise it. I have attempted to answer the question on raising the amount. I appreciate the points raised. I am afraid that for this evening, at this late hour, being a Scotsman, it is not £50,000, or even £500,000. It remains at £20,000.

However, for these reasons, I hope that the House will accept my explanations. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his kind remarks at the outset of his reply. I might have hoped that the notes in his folder were still those of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, as opposed to the ones that he read out this evening, since I suspect that they might have been slightly different.

All the debates today have shown that the House overwhelmingly wants to have an election watchdog, and wants it to be independent and effective. The Committee, and the whole House in due course, will have to return to the issue of the role and powers of the Electoral Commission, in particular the report on election finance by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. I was surprised that the Government committed just now to looking at those recommendations; they should have been looking at them in time for them to be considered in the passage of this Bill. That might have assisted us all.

However, the hour is now late enough. We will return to these issues in due course so, on that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 18 withdrawn.