Electoral Commission

Lord Strasburger Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The question of elections of MPs or mayors has been raised before. The commission does not have the power to disqualify MPs if they are found to have overspent in an election campaign, and I imagine that the same would be true of mayors. However—and I think this answers the noble Lord’s question—the commission can refer cases to the police or the relevant public prosecutor and generally do so if cases involve an element of deliberate dishonesty. That is the distinction.

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

My Lords, the Vote Leave whistleblower, Shamir Sanni, is adamant that the cheating and overspending was common knowledge in Vote Leave—everyone knew. Let us look at the rogues gallery of people inside Vote Leave who must have known about the £500,000 deliberate overspend. Some of those on the committee were Steve Baker, Iain Duncan Smith, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—who is not in his place—Liam Fox, Chris Grayling, the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, who is also not in his place, Dominic Raab, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson. Does the Minister agree that the country is owed an apology from all those people for the dishonesty that took place on their watch and that those still in office should step down until the police investigation is complete?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I refer the noble Lord to paragraph 1.13 of the Electoral Commission’s report:

“No other person was under investigation by the Commission”.