Localism Bill

Debate between Lord True and Lord Rennard

Thursday 30th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

Briefly, no problem seems to occur in elections. The paid staff of parties, as the noble Lord will well know, take part in elections, but it has never been considered an activity of paid canvassing. The activity of a large organisation like a big business deciding it wants to get something through and employing people specifically to sign the petition would be of a rather different order.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I fear that I rather agree with the noble Lord opposite. There is always a risk in creating a new criminal offence—or a new offence in any case. I hope that my noble friend will resist the amendment of my noble friends. The example of a local newspaper—“Tear off a strip, sign our petition”— which might be delivered by paid delivery potentially gets one into quite difficult areas. The paid deliverer could actually be deemed to be collecting signatures for a petition.

There might be a perfectly innocent occasion where somebody says to a child or young person, “Come along and help me collect some signatures, and we’ll buy you what you have been wanting for some time”. That is a perfectly normal kind of thing that goes on in family life, not just in politics. I understand the concerns of my noble friend Lord Rennard about big business, as he puts it, but we may be creating another regulatory hammer if we went down this road. It would not be helpful and might have unintended consequences.

So far as the other amendments are concerned, my noble friend can obviously answer for the Front Bench. I do not want to go into my views on the Electoral Commission as that would detain us for too long, but at least Clause 54(7) states:

“Before making any regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must consult the Electoral Commission”.

I would have thought that the Electoral Commission was capable of giving the Secretary of State advice on the kind of matters that my noble friend Lord Greaves has raised.