Elections and Referendums: Spending Rules

Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord Young of Cookham

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.