Elections and Referendums: Spending Rules

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, again I thank the Minister for taking this initiative to make sure that these discussions do take place and then fulfil, of course, the promise in the 2015 Conservative manifesto. I remind him that during that debate on 10 March I made specific reference to some of the discrepancies in referendum election expenses, to which he referred just now, because of course those are not subject to the difficulties that might occur with those matters that are possibly going to go before the courts. He will have seen the report from the Electoral Commission yesterday, which has some very good recommendations for looking at some of these issues. Will he confirm that that could be part of the discussion that is due to take place shortly?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord is quite right to refer to the recent report on the referendum by the Electoral Commission, which recommended that some of the provisions made for the recent referendum should be incorporated into PPERA—the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act—and would cover all referendums. The report came out only yesterday. He will understand that consideration is at an early stage. But it is perfectly possible to take those recommendations forward on a separate track.

Political Parties (Funding and Expenditure) Bill [HL]

Lord Tyler Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 10th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Tyler]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I must confess that I am very surprised—pleasantly surprised, of course—to be in a position to move the Second Reading of the Bill. Had there not been a filibuster in the other place two weeks ago, I would have had no chance to set out the merits of our proposals today, and that would have been the last opportunity in this Session.

I say “our proposals” because the Bill is based on the cross-party draft published in April 2013 by a small group comprising Andrew Tyrie, the very distinguished Member of the other place who has worked so hard on this issue, Alan Whitehead, a very well-respected Labour MP, and me. I am hugely grateful for their time and commitment, but the current Bill has, for obvious reasons, been updated since then, so they cannot be held responsible for all its detail.

I should also record that the really hard work for the original draft was undertaken by a professional parliamentary draftsperson, under the supervision of our principal adviser Alex Davies, with the support of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. Alex’s contribution to the whole process has been invaluable, and I can truly say that the Bill is as much his as it is mine.

I should also record that the Bill seeks to fulfil the objectives of the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life published in November 2011. I am delighted that the noble Lord who is the current chairman of the CSPL, and who has done so much to clarify the problems and possible solutions, intends to speak today. The current Bill, drafted nearly a year ago, updates the previous proposals to reflect the various manifesto commitments of all the main parties to take big money out of British politics and to regularise the constraints on both donations and campaign expenditure.

The delay in obtaining this debate has two fortuitous, huge benefits. First, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, is to respond, as he and I have debated together, and often worked together, over some 55 years. He may not care to be reminded of that and I hope that it is too late to affect his career, but it has been a very happy co-operation on several occasions. If this debate had taken place earlier in the Session, he might still have been enjoying a well-earned retirement on the Back Benches, but he is here today and I am delighted. Moreover, unlike many of his colleagues, the noble Lord comes to the Government Dispatch Box with a great deal of experience of election contests—several more than mine and very many of them more successful than mine. He is admirably and uniquely placed to respond positively to this debate.

Secondly, in the last few weeks there have been several developments that add to the urgency of a review of the law relating to political funding, in relation to both the extent to which millionaires dominate the income of all parties and the way in which opportunities are found to circumnavigate the long-established constraints of campaign funding. This debate is all the more timely and topical for that. For example, I immediately concede that, as it was prepared over a year ago, the Bill does not adequately cover the special circumstances of referendums—or referenda, if you prefer.

Members of your Lordships’ House will be aware of the recent revelations in the Observer newspaper examining the role of the American billionaire Robert Mercer and his interest in the company Cambridge Analytica during the Vote Leave campaign last year. Despite attempted explanations that this company, which also assisted the Trump campaign with intimate psychometric profiles to target swing voters—at a cost of more than $6 million—did not work in British politics, Mr Arron Banks suggests otherwise. He said last month that Cambridge Analytica was “world class” and had helped the leave campaign with “unprecedented levels of engagement”, and he claimed that its artificial intelligence “won it for Leave”.

One of the employees of this company had previously appeared at a Leave.EU press conference to explain the technology employed in its campaign. The Observer reports that Cambridge Analytica,

“declined to comment last week on whether it had donated services to Leave.eu”.

As Members here will know, all donations of services in kind worth more than £7,500 must be reported to the Electoral Commission. No such submission was made. Here is a clear case for the commission to be empowered to examine again the issue of valuable benefits in kind and to act to prevent abuse.

I come to a second example of potential abuse. The Guardian of 24 February reported on the curious case of the DUP’s referendum campaign expenditure, which was wholly and completely spent on the mainland of Great Britain. We now know that the DUP channelled an anonymous donation of over a quarter of a million pounds—£282,000—for an advertising wrap around Metro, by far its biggest single contribution to the leave campaign. Metro, of course, does not circulate in the Province of Northern Ireland. As my noble friend Lord Rennard will recall, the rules on political donation transparency were not extended to the Province in 2000 for very special reasons. Those reasons may not apply now and should surely be revisited. The practical result of this devious action has been to create an apparent case of political money laundering.

I hope that Ministers and the commission will again agree that this potential abuse should not be permitted to continue and increase, and the latter must be given powers, in legislation, to tackle it. Together, those two examples result in the leave campaign standing accused not only of lying in the substance of its campaign but of cheating in the process of delivering it.

My third example is even more urgent and topical, because the trend that I will identify is insidious and undermines one of the most vital features of our representative democracy. Since 1883, there have been firm rules to prevent individuals and organisations pouring excessive sums of money into constituency campaigns to secure the election of individual candidates—to prevent the purchase of MPs, if you like. In all the elections that he contested, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Young, was reminded that every single penny spent to secure his success was restricted by law and had to be observed rigorously and reported or he could have ended up in court. A number of other Members of your Lordships’ House stood for election to the other place, and I am sure that they too were reminded by their agents at regular intervals during campaigns about the expenditure of any sum to secure election.

Over recent years, however, an ever-increasing percentage of the investment in target seats has come from the various national parties’ campaign funds, with hugely different—and higher—permitted totals. All parties have seen this as an obvious way to increase their chances of success in those constituencies, while neatly dodging the long-established local financial constraints.

In recent weeks we have all been indebted to Michael Crick and Channel 4 for their determined investigative journalism on this issue. Personally I regret that the BBC has appeared to be prepared to leave it to its rivals to undertake this important role. However, the Times also covered the issue extensively in its issue of 4 March under the headline:

“Election fraud inquiry rocks No 10”.


Considerable interest followed from that. While media attention has fizzed around these cases, the official response has been positively pedestrian. Outrageously, these matters have been allowed to drag on for more than 20 months. Quite apart from anything else, this has been hanging over the heads of a number of individual MPs, whose whole political career could be at risk.

It is surely absurd for so many individual police forces, many of which may never have undertaken a similar investigation, to have to learn afresh how campaign funding is restricted by law. That is why Clause 23 of our Bill makes provision for the Electoral Commission to be empowered in this key role of ensuring compliance with all expenditure limits in election law.

Meanwhile, Clause 19 sets out clearly a way to circumscribe the growing abuse of the whole purpose of our electoral legislation. Subsection (3) of that clause is the only part of the Bill that I intend to quote directly this afternoon. It reads:

“No more than one per cent. of the amount specified in subsection (2) may be incurred by a represented registered party for the purposes of—


(a) sending unsolicited material falling within paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 which is addressed to any person registered, or entitled to be registered, in the register of parliamentary electors for any particular constituency; or


(b) making unsolicited telephone calls to such persons”.


To be clear, this means that only 1% of the overall national PPERA limit could be spent in any one constituency on the two key campaign methods that are demonstrably targeted. After all, a letter or telephone call to an elector at home in a constituency cannot be said to be doing other than influencing the result in that constituency. It is one of the features of our electoral system that there is no national result or regional result—only constituency results.

What we are suggesting may not prevent all the present cunning attempts to bypass the law, not least with the advent of targeted social media advertising, but it would be a good start. If the Government took on this cross-party Bill, they could certainly make it more comprehensive: for example, by dealing with the deployment of central party staff and the busloads of activists sent to marginal seats. I do not know whether the noble Lord normally reads the Daily Mail every morning, but I am sure that his department will have drawn his attention to page 2 of that newspaper this morning. Possibly he also saw Channel 4 last night, which was very relevant.

I am very confident, being well aware of the recent extensive, excellently prepared and fair recommendations of the Electoral Commission, that its expert advice would be available to Ministers. I have a summary of relevant recent Electoral Commission statements, which I do not propose to read out now, but I am sure the Minister is well aware of them.

The Times article to which I referred earlier was accompanied by a leading article which concluded:

“The spending rules exist for good reasons. They ensure that constituency candidates face each other on a level playing field. Fiddling expenses undermines not just the result, but the public’s faith in the institutions of government. Above all, the electoral process must be seen to be honest and above reproach”.


I wholeheartedly agree and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Young, will do so, too, when he winds up the debate.

I readily acknowledge that the likelihood of any further progress for our cross-party Bill at this time in the Session is precisely nil. However, help is at hand. Members of your Lordships’ House will recall the crucial recommendations of the Select Committee on Trade Union Political Funds and Political Party Funding, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. I am proud to admit that I originally suggested the creation of that committee and served on it. Our report, published just over a year ago, referred to the Conservative 2015 election manifesto commitment to,

“seek agreement on a comprehensive package of party funding reform”.

Our report included one very important recommendation, number 138, which was approved unanimously:

“Whether or not clause 10 is enacted, in whatever form, the political parties should live up to their manifesto commitments and make a renewed and urgent effort to seek a comprehensive agreement on party funding reform. We urge the Government to take a decisive lead and convene talks itself, rather than waiting for them to emerge”.


Your Lordships’ House subsequently accepted the Select Committee’s report enthusiastically, and the Trade Union Bill was amended—but we waited in vain for the Government’s response to this crucial recommendation.

At long last, on Christmas Eve, six months beyond the conventional limit, Mr Chris Skidmore, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Cabinet Office, wrote to our committee chairman. His memorandum setting out the Government’s response largely ignored this recommendation and failed completely to reiterate the 2015 Conservative manifesto commitment. Instead, he stated baldly:

“Despite a decade of talks, there is still no cross-party consensus on the separate and broader issue of party funding at this time”.


I am not quite sure how he arrived at that view in advance of convening talks. I suspect it may be that the Conservatives just do not want to find a consensus. However, he went on to promise that,

“the Government is open to constructive debate and dialogue on small-scale measures which could command broad support—if there was a positive reaction to such a potential step from the main political parties”.

Let me repeat the vital phrase, “a positive reaction”. I do not know Mr Skidmore, but I am sure the Minister will concur that the team in the Cabinet Office always choose their words with extreme care. It is impossible to have a “reaction”, positive or otherwise, without having an action to react to. Therefore, I take it that the Government are now ready to respond and put some proposals to a cross-party group or committee which they will convene, to meet the recommendation of the Select Committee so warmly endorsed by your Lordships’ House.

Indeed, it may be that the Minister will be able to outline those proposals this afternoon. I say “this afternoon” because I have always been told that it is when the Mace hits the Woolsack that the afternoon starts—so even if our clock is saying 11.35, it is technically the afternoon. In any case, we in this House—and especially those of us from across the House who agreed unanimously to the Select Committee’s recommendations, several of whom I am delighted to see here today—will now look to the Government to initiate these talks immediately, with a view to taking this further in the Queen’s Speech and the new Session.

The Prime Minister came to office last year without the trouble and expense of an election. But she none the less pledged to lead a Government which would be,

“driven not by the interests of the privileged few”.

While donations and expenditure to election campaigns remain unreformed, she simply cannot realise this ambition. A privileged few will continue to have privileged access to government and to power. So, before we get too close to another general election, it is time finally to grasp this nettle. We who have worked on this cross-party Bill offer it as a practical starting point for cross-party discussions and for the legislation that must surely follow. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to a number of noble Lords for giving up their Friday to discuss what may have seemed a rather arcane subject to some and, indeed, one which, because of the nature of this Bill and the limited time that is going to be given to it between now and the end of this Session, is rather an academic subject as well.

I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Young, will take it that every person who has contributed to this debate today is effectively echoing, “Something must be done”—and I shall come back to the suggestion that he made at the end of his speech in a moment.

Two or three points have come out in the debate which may need to be put on one side. First, I am not suggesting—and it has never been suggested—that there should be a net increase in state funding. As the noble Lord accepts, the Bill recognises that there could be ways to make substantial savings. He referred to my right honourable friend Nick Clegg and his evidence to the Select Committee. Colleagues on the committee will recall that he indicated what savings might be made and committed himself to the proposition that any change should incur no net increase in state funding, only some reallocation. As my noble friend Lord Rennard said, we have over the years put forward suggestions about how savings could be made in other ways. This point was also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.

I am also very conscious of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Fraser—I am glad he contributed to the debate—that my Bill has been substantially overtaken by concerns about the way in which funding has gone into referenda and referendum campaigns. I hope the Minister recognises that this is an important additional issue which we should all be thinking about and addressing now. There might be another one in two or three years’ time and we do not want to have a repeat of that concern.

I turn to the issue of consensus. How does the noble Lord know that there is no consensus, any more than Mr Skidmore who said there was none? Until the Government actually accept the very clear recommendation of the Select Committee that some new initiative should be taken, we do not know if there is a consensus or how far it might go. I agree with every point made by the noble Lord, Lord True, about the need to catch up with some of the issues that have arisen in recent years. True to his name, he speaks with considerable authority about the difficulties that may be faced by those who have too much money to throw around at present. Every single member who has contributed today is clearly indicating that there is a consensus—at least across your Lordships’ House—that we have got to address these issues. I hope the Minister will take that point back.

The Minister has demonstrated, not just today but on previous occasions, that he is very sensitive to the concerns which are often expressed in your Lordships’ House. We are not directly affected by how elections are run, but we have a very proper constitutional responsibility—not just a right—to look hard at electoral law. Will he commit himself to taking part in the discussions which his honourable friend has now agreed we might have? We could break the logjam, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Young, will be prepared to take part.

We cannot ignore the advice of the Electoral Commission. It has made recommendations about reviewing the relationship between the definitions of regulated candidate spending and regulated political party spending that have been in place since 2000 and about the focus on spending in constituencies. This was a major theme of my speech earlier today, of my Bill and of media and public concern. If we are to regain the trust which the noble Lord, Lord Bew, rightly identifies, we have to address that issue. I am sure the Electoral Commission would be happy to help us with it.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Public Contracts: Conflicts of Interest

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, there were lots of questions there. HS2 Ltd follows recruitment practices that are similar to those followed in Civil Service appointments and are made through open and fair competition. The short-term services of the interim CEO have been obtained to fill the gap until those fair and open procedures for the permanent appointment can be completed. The interim CEO is not an employee of HS2 Ltd, so it would not be appropriate to follow a recruitment process for such an appointment.

To quickly cover the noble Lord’s point about not being open regarding the people on the panel, as my noble friend Lord Ahmad said—indeed, I wonder why my noble friend is not standing here instead of me—in his previous Answer:

“It is not possible to provide the names of HS2 Ltd’s Conflict of Interest Panel Members, nor details of specific cases which have been heard as we do not consider doing so would be consistent with the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). Unfair disclosure of personal data is a breach of the First Data Protection Principles under the DPA”.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, given the commitment to transparency that the noble Baroness has just referred to, presumably she still endorses the view that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Will she look again at the issue of the freedom of information legislation, which of course does not extend to those private companies that provide or deliver public services? Given that the taxpayer pays a huge sum to these organisations, is it not right that the taxpayer should be able to see, through freedom of information access, exactly what their money is spent on?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

Obviously, these appointments are the responsibility of each department, and each department follows the Civil Service Code, which sets out the process for dealing with any possible breaches. Essentially, cases are dealt with by the department according to its own processes and can ultimately be referred to the Civil Service Commission to investigate. The propriety and ethics team can give general advice on the application of the code.

Party Funding Reform

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I start with a quote:

“Whether or not clause 10 is enacted, in whatever form, the political parties should live up to their manifesto commitments and make a renewed and urgent effort to seek a comprehensive agreement on party funding reform. We urge the Government to take a decisive lead and convene talks itself, rather than waiting for them to emerge”.

That was the unanimous recommendation of a Select Committee of your Lordships’ House, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and which represented all groups in the House—three of which are here this evening, I am delighted to say—and it was of course subsequently welcomed on all sides of the House. The report was published on 2 March of this year. The convention is that the Government respond to a Select Committee report of your Lordships’ House within two months. It is now six months later and we are still waiting for any sort of response, let alone any action to fulfil that recommendation.

The Government are clearly becoming increasingly apprehensive that the traditional role of your Lordships’ House as the impartial guardian of the constitution, semi-detached from the rather more tribal activities at the other end of this building, will prove more popular than their own narrow partisan approach. Perhaps we should remind the Government that they were elected with less than a quarter of the eligible electorate giving them their support, so they have a doubtful mandate.

The Government should also be reminded, as they were by the Select Committee of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, that the Conservative manifesto had an explicit promise, as we have been told this evening:

“We will continue to seek agreement on a comprehensive package of party funding reform”.

Since the 2015 election, further evidence has emerged of the extent to which all parties—as my noble friend Lord Wallace has said—are now reliant on a small number of large corporate bodies and individual millionaires, when we all want to step away from that and try to make sure that we have a greater number of small donations. It is extremely important, as my noble friend Lord Wrigglesworth has just said, that we should look again at giving encouragement to smaller donations through a replica of the gift aid scheme that is available to those donating to charities.

Millions of modest donors must be better than millions of pounds from a very small group of special interests, trying to buy access, influence or patronage. That includes—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, would accept—those who have been supporting UKIP, and indeed the SNP, which have been reliant on a small number of very big millionaire donors. His argument would also go in the same direction.

I think we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bew, for giving us some brief information about this latest poll that the Committee on Standards in Public Life has commissioned. That is really useful and we will all look at it with considerable interest. But I just remind him that the last time that there was an indication of the public’s attitude to this, 77% were saying that big donors have too much influence—that would seem to have risen. However, at the same time, 57% believe that state funding of politics is better than the present system when there is a direct comparison, which has gone up from 41% in 2014. So it is not such a clear picture about the state funding issue as has been suggested.

As my noble friend Lord Wrigglesworth has said, if you simply reallocate existing state funding—free postage being an obvious example—you could save a huge sum of money which could be better allocated to good effect. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, summarised the situation excellently after the general election when he said that:

“It is clear after the General Election that the issue of party funding remains a matter of significant public concern centred on the confluence of money, power and influence”.

I thought that his speech this evening underlined that brilliantly. Since 2015 and the CSPL report—and indeed since the general election—there have been some important changes in the relationship of the Labour Party and its main funders, but no movement on the Conservative side. The time is now really ripe for some movement there.

It is not just the donations issue that is resulting in the ever-decreasing public confidence in these aspects of our political system.

In the 12 elections that I have contested—I have won some and lost some, as we all have—I have always been reminded by my agent that every single pound spent to promote the candidature has to be carefully recorded, and, of course, it is restricted; otherwise, you could face an election court, with the potential for disqualification. My noble friend Lord Oates is absolutely right: the law that has been in place since 1883 to prevent anybody with large amounts of money seeking to buy a constituency, and thereby own the Member of Parliament, is now being circumvented by the current situation. The present rules are inadequate and simply do not meet the case.

The independent Electoral Commission said in its report on the 2015 UK parliamentary general election, published in February of this year:

“These experiences from the 2015 UKPGE reinforce our view that the relationship between regulation of candidate spending and political party spending that has been in place since PPERA was passed in 2000 needs closer examination. The law currently only requires political parties to report spending against separate limits for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which means it is difficult to assess whether and where political parties are choosing to target their spend, their campaign funds on a regional or constituency basis”.

Evidence to the Burns committee reinforced that. We had evidence in particular from the Minister in the coalition Government who was responsible for these matters, who told the committee that,

“the local constituency-wide spending limits were made a mockery of, first, because all this stuff was being mailed out centrally and, secondly—one has to acknowledge—because of some very ingenious, intelligent and smart, if ruthless, use of digital technology, which costs money … Some of the hired guns of the Conservatives are already on public record as saying they spent far more than they should have done, but the question beyond that is that those slightly old-fashioned constituency-level limits can be easily circumvented through central funding, or through the use of … database campaigning techniques”.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, that Jim Messina, who claimed that the Conservatives spent £30 million, far in excess of the national limit of £18.5 million, seems not to agree with him that there was not a general increase.

The Electoral Commission has made firm recommendations on this issue. Clearly, we have to listen to it because it is the statutory body responsible for electoral law. Since then, we have had the referendum, to which my noble friend referred. I simply say that I think the time has come to move on. Indeed, the report by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on third-party campaigning adds to the need for a level playing field of funding constraints between them on one side and the political parties on the other. Taken with the CSPL evidence and the Burns Select Committee and, indeed, the report and draft Bill produced by the cross-party group in 2013, there is simply no excuse now for further delaying tactics.

Franchise: British Citizens Abroad

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I certainly cannot speak for anybody else but it had not entered my head. This will allow everybody who was resident in the UK and is now living abroad, but has been living there for more than 15 years, to vote in UK elections. It does not matter what party they vote for; we welcome them all.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, will the Government examine all the options when they prepare this legislation? For example, will they examine the case for distinct, separate constituencies for our fellow citizens who now live abroad? Does the Minister recognise that there are Members on all sides of the House who have served as MPs and will know the advantages of being able to really speak for those people? As it stands, the average Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat—or whatever—MP will undoubtedly find it difficult to represent the voices and views of a small number of overseas electors when they have thousands of others who still live in their constituency. After 15, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years it would be very difficult to represent them.

Electoral Status: Online Access

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I am sorry to disappoint your Lordships, but I am not going to commit the Government to that. Without the implementation of these boundary reforms, MPs would, by 2020, end up representing constituencies that are drawn up on data that are over 15 years old for all of the UK.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister please take very seriously the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack? There is a financial penalty, but it is not widely advertised. Would the Minister also accept our offer to work with him—he has been very generous in saying that he wishes to work on a cross-party basis—to examine the lessons of the last few weeks? This is a matter that concerns all Members of your Lordships’ House, and indeed the other place. In so doing, can we look at the particular issue of the potential discrepancy that the Electoral Commission anticipates between the 1 December register and the register next Thursday?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I am more than happy to work with the noble Lord and others on the practical consequences of the problems that we faced last week with the website and the lessons that can be learned as regards duplicates. As for the issue of automatic registration, I am sorry, but I have made the position clear.

EU Referendum: Voter Registration

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

That is another fair point. We are indeed going to ensure that we cover reasonable costs for the EROs.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I am not going to go back to the memories of 27 October. Perhaps the noble Baroness might remind some of her colleagues who failed to vote for my Motion that night. Obviously, what happened last night was damaging, and particularly for young people who for the first time were hoping to register to vote. Can the Minister confirm that, as of midnight last night, we were all well aware that something had gone wrong? Why was Section 4 of the European Union Referendum Act 2015 not then immediately put in motion? A draft SI could have been submitted to the two Houses today under the super-affirmative process and we could have dealt with this immediately. Does the Minister not recognise that, even as a result of the discussions in another place, which I followed carefully, there is still some real confusion as to what is going to happen with postal and proxy votes, which also have a deadline? No Statement has been made in your Lordships’ House or the other place on that matter. There is lots of confusion here, and it should be cleared up very quickly.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I think we all wish to learn the lessons from what happened last night—I totally heed that point. However, the Government need to move with haste and ensure that what they do is legally watertight. That is entirely what we are aiming to do. After all, the Government are rightly called to account by your Lordships on whether we legislate in undue haste, and to ensure that we do things in a proper way. As for postal votes, that is an entirely separate system of registration, and nothing is changing there.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I so enthusiastically endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, has said that I can now rip out at least one page of my speech. There are very few issues of great substance in the gracious Speech in terms of the constitutional challenges that the country faces, so I take the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, who was here earlier. He said in the debate last Thursday:

“It may well be that the most significant words in the Queen’s Speech yesterday were that, ‘other measures will be laid before you’”.

I have met those words before and they are often the most important part of the gracious Speech. I will come back to some obvious omissions in a moment. Meanwhile, in the limited time available I am certainly not going to speculate on what exactly is meant by the extraordinarily meaningless statement about the Strathclyde review. Since there is no Bill attached and any attempt to legislate would be fraught with procedural and political obstacles, we can only guess at what this is supposed to foreshadow. The Government’s explanatory statement is at best ambiguous: “the sovereignty of Parliament” refers to the whole institution; namely, both Houses. It is quite separate of course from the primacy of the House of Commons, where it is simply a convention within that whole. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, again rightly entered a very proper corrective:

“We do not want the primacy of the House of Commons translated into the primacy of the Executive—the primacy of the Government unchecked”.—[Official Report, 19/5/16; cols. 43-44.]

I prefer this advice to that of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham.

I turn to the omissions from the gracious Speech. Two matters will have to be dealt with by Private Members’ Bills. I had hoped to reintroduce the Private Member’s Bill of our much-missed colleague Eric, Lord Avebury, to end the ludicrous hereditary by-elections, but frankly I was pipped at the post. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, on that subject. When the very temporary arrangement of the by-elections was mooted in 1999, my noble friend Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, then speaking on behalf of our group, ensured that we Liberal Democrats never signed up to the by-elections. Instead, we preferred to insist that all the remaining 92 hereditary Members would automatically be converted into Life Peers. That would be much simpler.

For my part, I intend to help the Government with another topical and relevant set of reforms. Since Ministers do not seem to have been able to move sufficiently speedily to a comprehensive reform of party funding, I am sure that they will welcome, as they usually do, some private enterprise assistance. Members of your Lordships’ House will recall that an almost universal welcome was given to the recommendations of the special Select Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, in the last Session. These were almost all unanimously agreed by the committee, cross-party, and were hailed as meticulously fair by colleagues in all parts of your Lordships’ House. Ministers in both Houses lauded the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the rest of us, praising our conclusions. Indeed, the Government backed down when faced with amendments to their Trade Union Bill based on those recommendations.

Paragraph 138 of that same Select Committee report, so warmly endorsed by Ministers and Members in both Houses, reads as follows:

“Whether or not clause 10 is enacted, in whatever form, the political parties should live up to their manifesto commitments and make a renewed and urgent effort to seek a comprehensive agreement on party funding reform. We urge the Government to take a decisive lead and convene talks itself, rather than waiting for them to emerge”.

I am sure that the Government really want to get on with the job because that would fulfil their 2015 manifesto promise.

There might be advantages in terms of transparency and public engagement if we started that process in your Lordships’ House. That is why I decided to give the Government a helping hand, hence my Private Member’s Bill, the political parties (funding and expenditure) Bill. I was tempted to read the Long Title but it is rather long, so in the interests of brevity I will give a very quick synopsis: phased introduction of caps on donations; fair funding of parties, incentivising membership and local activity; changes to the rules on nominations at elections; provision for between-election limits on parties’ expenditure; and, crucially, the conferring of powers on the Electoral Commission, including investigation of constituency-level breaches of the law, which is presently and preposterously left to the police.

This Bill is firmly based on the cross-party draft I prepared and published in 2013, together with prominent Conservative and Labour MPs. However, they should not be held responsible for all its present proposals, because I have updated it and ensured its topicality. For example, we have taken the opportunity to insert the requirements of the Trade Union Act.

In addition, I propose measures to deal with the current vagueness and confusion surrounding campaign expenditure—nominally part of the nationally controlled budget of the party—which is, in practice, targeted precisely to support a particular candidate in a particular constituency. All of us in your Lordships’ House who have in the past contested elections will be well aware that we and our agents have always been told that we have to be absolutely clear that we are responsible for every penny spent in support of our candidature, otherwise we end up in the election court.

Over the last two years or so, experience has dramatically demonstrated that these restrictions are now routinely circumvented by so-called national spending, under the very high PPERA limits. Unsolicited material—mailshots and other directly addressed material—costing millions of pounds has bypassed the constituency expense limit, which was first legislated for as long ago as 1883.

The current inadequate investigations must obviously lead to careful clarification of the law. My Bill is a modest offering to Ministers to enable them to keep their manifesto promise. I hope that the Minister, when winding up, will confirm that the Government will welcome recommendations from the Electoral Commission on how existing regulations could and should be updated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I suspect that my noble friend knows the answer to that question. I am sure he will tell the House. I dread to think.

The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, who has more experience on the matter of statutory instruments than many in this House—or, indeed, in Parliament—rightly raised the issue of the need for proper scrutiny of delegated legislation. I say to him, to my noble friend and to all noble Lords that after only a year in this House, I entirely agree that we need to do that. However, I say again, with due respect and very gently, that there is a comprehensive scrutiny system through which Parliament can hold the Government to account for the delegated powers and SIs that they use. This includes scrutiny by three dedicated Select Committees, debates in Standing Committees and Floor debates.

[Lord Tyler]

Before the Minister leaves the Strathclyde report, will he correct one point? He suggested just now that the three committees to which he referred had somehow prevented the need for a Joint Committee. Absolutely wrong—it is precisely the opposite. All three of those committees recommended that the proper way to deal with the relationship between the two Houses was to bring representatives of the two Houses together in a Joint Committee.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

The noble Lord, as always, makes a very incisive point. All I can say right now is that the Government are working on their response and will respond in due course to all these points. The eloquence with which he and the noble Lords, Lord Kakkar and Lord Butler, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, have spoken shows that when, in due course, this happens, we will have a passionate and well-informed debate on the issue.

Trade Union Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I rise with some disappointment to speak on these amendments, but I start by paying tribute to my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe because throughout she has been exemplary in her courtesy and assistance. I know from past experience that sometimes as a Minister you hold to a line and then suddenly a hole appears in front of you into which you drop. I fear that she may be feeling slightly like that, and our honourable friend Mr Boles may feel the same.

I am disappointed not because this is a grand old Duke of York moment, although in the committee we were indeed marched up to the top of the hill, but because this is the wrong decision. The Bill that came to the House of Lords was frankly not a good Bill. There were three issues that I particularly seized on. One was electronic balloting and the unnecessary bureaucracy involved in the Bill—the need to write to people and people only being able to communicate by writing, which was nonsensical. The second was that there was just not enough time to do it in a matter of months. Any large organisation needs time to contact all its members. I am glad to see that, as a result of our deliberations, there will now be a 12-month window for transition. The third reason was that having to review the decision every five years was punitive, as the noble Lord, Lord Burns, who ably chaired the committee, has described it. Others in this Chamber will know better than me, but I wonder whether the Bill was stitched together by some special adviser who was being paid too much; some teenage scribbler who should, perhaps, have been given greater and wiser direction.

There were two reasons for my disappointment. First, this was a commitment in our manifesto, which specifically said that we would,

“ensure trade unions use a transparent opt-in process for union subscriptions”,

and not just for new members. The second reason is the very important issue of principle. If the principle is that people should opt in, rather than out, then that principle is right—would any noble Lord like to disagree with that? As we heard in our committee, presumed consent is no longer acceptable in financial services. In our earlier discussions on the Bank of England and Financial Services Bill, the Opposition were speaking ably and rightly about consumer protection. Why should trade unionists not have the same consumer protection as anybody else and not have to opt in rather than out?

These two reasons leave me gravely disappointed. I am sure it is not the case, but there is a hint that a deal may have been cut behind closed doors, which does not reflect well on this Government. They should have stuck by their principles and by the principle which I have mentioned. Politicians are much criticised for not keeping their promises and for inconsistency. By allowing these amendments to go forward, the Government have not kept their manifesto promise and have been inconsistent, and it pains me to say that.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I too served on the Select Committee so ably led by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and I am delighted to follow on from—and endorse—what he has said this afternoon. As one of the co-signatories, from every part of the House, for his amendment on Report, I warmly welcome what the Government have now decided to do. They have, albeit at the very last minute, recognised the validity of what the Select Committee recommended and the very strong support for it in all parts of this House. I note again that the Minister herself has referred to the committee as “careful” and “wise”. I take comfort from that description. I am not sure that she would have said it earlier on, but she has said it now.

It is also very gratifying that, when its work was being examined in the other place last Wednesday, there were also very considerable tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the rest of the Select Committee. There was unanimous praise and support from Members on all sides. Not only the Minister, Nick Boles, but representatives of the opposition parties paid tribute to the work that was done at—as has been acknowledged—considerable speed and were united in expressing agreement with our broad conclusions. As the original proposer of this way to achieve some non-partisan, cross-party, independent scrutiny of this highly controversial part of the Bill, I took particular pleasure from that endorsement as I listened to the Commons debate. MPs on all sides made reference to the Select Committee’s wider recommendations, to which the noble Lord, Lord Burns, has referred, on the question of party funding reform. In paragraph 131, the committee quoted the double promise in the 2015 Conservative manifesto:

“In the next Parliament, we will legislate to ensure trade unions use a transparent opt-in process for subscriptions to political parties”.

And, it goes on, immediately:

“We will continue to seek agreement on a comprehensive package of party funding reform”.

I note what the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, said about manifesto promises, and I hope he endorses that promise with equal sincerity and strength.

In paragraph 138 of the report, the committee recommended to the House and the Government that:

“Whether or not clause 10 is enacted, in whatever form, the political parties should live up to their manifesto commitments and make a renewed and urgent effort to seek a comprehensive agreement on party funding reform. We urge the Government to take a decisive lead and convene talks itself, rather than waiting for them to emerge”.

This is where this business is now unfinished and where we must expect further explicit announcements from Ministers. Ministers simply cannot pretend that this issue is unimportant. That firm recommendation was supported unanimously in the Select Committee with forthright endorsement by all four Conservative members.

Members on all sides of your Lordships’ House have joined the Select Committee in highlighting public concern about the dominance of big money in British politics. The Select Committee took a lot of evidence on that point. Who can say that the public are wrong to be suspicious of favoured access, favoured influence and favoured patronage? It is often said, “He who pays the piper calls the tune”. Only this weekend, we have had a vivid reminder of how damaging to public confidence in our democracy this can be. The Conservative Party’s determination to inflame people’s fear, hatred and greed in the London mayoral election has been all too obvious. Powerful financial interests are clearly scared. I noticed in particular the comment of the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, who rightly asked whether this disgraceful campaign really represents the true motives of the candidate. Whether or not it does, she was brave and right to call her party out on this deplorable campaign.

If our politics are to become more palatable to her and to the public, removing big money is an essential prerequisite. The changes we are making to the Bill this afternoon provide an opportunity to do just that if the Government will, as the committee unanimously recommended, once again institute serious cross-party talks and bring a Bill back to Parliament. There is a huge body of work on this essential element of reform, and it is now for the parties to live up to their promises about implementing a fair package. If Ministers today cannot give a complete and authoritative response to this crucial part of the Select Committee’s report, the House will surely expect to be told who will respond and when.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I join my noble friend Lord Robathan in expressing my disappointment at the Government’s concessions on this amendment because the principle of opt-in was at the core of the Bill. We had robust discussions in the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and I am grateful to the Minister for mentioning that in her opening speech, but all four of the Conservative members of that committee were very keen to make sure that existing members were included as part of the opt-in process, not least because this is a manifesto commitment. It was a badly worded manifesto commitment but, as Ministers in this House and in the other place have made clear, it was a firm manifesto commitment on which they were not going to compromise, right up until last week.

I served in the European Parliament for 15 years, and I expected Ministers to compromise to a certain degree on this. In the European Parliament, compromise is the spirit of the day as there are many parties from many different countries. I have spent many a happy, and sometimes not so happy, hour negotiating until the small hours of the morning on various Bills and other legislation. Of course you have to give ground, and I was perfectly prepared to see the Government give ground on the transition period and the length of the transitional measures. That was to be expected, but to see the whole thing junked completely is extremely disappointing because it still leaves millions of workers in this country contributing to political parties and political causes about which they have never been asked or consulted. That is the principle that we should be upholding.

My concern is not so much that the Government have climbed down on this. I am disappointed, but I could have accepted that as part of the normal parliamentary discourse. My bigger concern is the reason for the Government’s climb-down. I do not necessarily believe everything that I read in the media, but if media reports are to be believed the reason for this climb-down is part of a deal with the trade unions for financial and political support for the remain campaign in the EU referendum. I do not know whether that is true, but if it is it is disappointing and regrettable. We are well used to the party opposite doing deals with the trade unions on legislative changes in return for political donations. I really hope that the Government are not doing the same in this instance. It is another demonstration, if one were needed, of the hideous power of the EU to subvert our democratic process.

Trade Union Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Lords Chamber

The House will know that no employer has sought this interference with its right to manage, and that many are concerned about the red tape and cost that it entails, which makes us think that the Bill’s real aim is to make union organisation harder. But if it is to happen, we urge the Government to have constructive debates with the charity sector, affected employers and trade unions, and to allow each of these enough time to construct and bed down the necessary form-filling processes. A lot of work will be involved, and it needs to be undertaken without ridiculous haste if it is to be effective, efficient and give value for money.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I want briefly to contribute on this set of amendments to welcome, on behalf of my colleagues, the way in which the Minister has responded to our request last week to ensure that we saw the draft regulations. In particular, he has addressed the issue of the affirmative and negative procedures, and I am delighted to see in Amendment 7 that he has opted for the affirmative procedure.

However, I have a similar concern to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on the issue of the cross-reference to the freedom of information legislation. As she and I are well aware, it is, we suppose, currently still under review. We therefore need to know whether the list of those organisations that are included in that legislation is as now or as it might be in the future. Would it not be a sensible compromise—perhaps the Minister could give us this assurance—that the cross-reference should be to those organisations that are included at the time of Royal Assent to this Bill and therefore relevant to this section of this Bill, in terms of facility time and indeed of check-off? It would be rather peculiar if, as it were, the Minister anchored himself into something that was on the move, and we therefore found ourselves in a period of less transparency, less credibility and less definition rather than, as I think was his intention, greater clarity.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for those very acute contributions. I apologise to them for not getting the letter to them sooner. However, I am grateful for the welcome that it has received. The noble Baroness, with her customary acuteness and accuracy, has shot seven Exocets across my bow on this. I shall attempt to answer them, and if I fail to do so then obviously I shall write to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord and put the letter in the House Library.

Have the 255 bodies been consulted? We will be discussing these with all these bodies as we proceed towards implementation. As regards specific bodies, the noble Baroness has clearly picked on a few here. I shall write to her as regards the Legal Services Board. We have been working very hard to try to make sure that the list is as accurate as possible—I stress that this is a draft—but I quite understand your Lordships when they say that that is not altogether satisfactory, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for drawing my attention to the Legal Services Board. As regards academies and housing associations, those bodies will be covered if they meet the provisions as set out. I shall write with complete accuracy to the noble Baroness on those two points—but, as regards academies, my understanding is that they would be covered if they met the provisions.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and the noble Baroness referred to the FOIA, and whether or not we might be looking at these issues. I stress that the FOIA was based as a starting point. Clearly, there is the double lock of not just being on the FOIA but being mainly funded. I shall look again at the words—I make no commitment about this, I am sorry to say—but I am unable to do so right now. The noble Baroness made some suggestions about wordings and the noble Lord made some suggestions about where we might be in future. I shall write to them both about those specific points, but I cannot make any commitments to change right now. However, I repeat that those are good points.

As regards the burdens, I heed what the noble Baroness has to say. As we saw in the previous exchange, when my noble friend discussed the previous amendment, this Government wish to ensure that we do not unnecessarily add to burdens. I stress that the information required for publication is a narrow and reasonable range, similar to that which, for example, English local authorities publish as part of the Local Government Transparency Code and which the Department for Education recommended that all schools publish in its 2014 guidance.

I shall end on that point. I commit to write to the noble Baroness.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, as the Bill nears the end of its parliamentary journey, I want to take a moment to consider how far it has come since being introduced to this House last November. The Bill strikes a fair balance between the unions, whose work we all value, and their responsibility to society, especially to other working people—as patients, parents and passengers.

Noble Lords spoke eloquently about the case to change key aspects of the Bill, including on political funds, check-off and the Certification Officer. I am grateful for your Lordships’ active engagement and tireless commitment to finding an acceptable way forward on these matters. I want in particular to thank, on the opposition Front Benches, the noble Lords, Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Collins, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith, Lady Wheeler and Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, for a very constructive approach. I have also valued the input from the Back-Benchers opposite and their advisers, and am pleased that the Government listened and responded and that the Bill is much better as a result.

I am also enormously grateful to many noble Lords across the Chamber for their passionate and intelligent contribution, especially to the noble Lord, Lord Burns—who sadly is not in his place—and the Select Committee on Trade Union Political Funds and Political Party Funding for the additional scrutiny and common sense that their work brought to this Bill.

[Lord Tyler]

Is the Minister in a position to tell us when the Government will respond in full to the recommendations of that Select Committee on which I served? It would be extraordinary if your Lordships’ House did have not a response before the completion of the whole process on this Bill. That would include all the recommendations of the Select Committee. She has referred to it as a splendid Select Committee; I assume she thinks all its recommendations are splendid, which would include not just the revised Clauses 10 and 11 but the link to discussions on party political funding. When will we get a response on that issue?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

The noble Lord is, in his usual way, perhaps leaping to a conclusion I am not able to make, but I will take away what he said. The Bill will return to the other place and I will bear in mind the point that he has made, but I am certainly not in a position to respond today on the full panoply of the report. However, we have heard in this House how strongly people feel about all this, and the process, which was separate from the Bill, has been helpful in enabling us to edge forward on the Bill’s provisions.

I thank my noble friends Lord Bridges and Lord Courtown for their assistance and my noble friends Lord Sherbourne, Lord Robathan, Lord Callanan, Lord De Mauley, Lord King and Lord Leigh for their support, and of course my noble friend Lord Balfe, particularly for arranging for me to meet the smaller unions to complement my experience with larger unions such as USDAW, which has been mentioned today. That was a very important meeting. I express my appreciation to the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, for her support and expertise, and I thank the Bill team and my own private office for days and nights of hard work.

Once again, this House has demonstrated the huge value that its scrutiny adds to the legislative process and, as ever, I am pleased to have been a part of it. I look forward to returning this Bill to the Minister, Nick Boles, its main parent in the other place.