Electoral Commission Investigation: Vote Leave

Debate between Pat McFadden and Chloe Smith

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

The report is clear that consequences do follow. The Electoral Commission has issued fines and referred both Vote Leave and the BeLeave founder to the police. That is what I refer to when I say that consequences and punishments are following.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I reported the leave campaign’s intentions to both the Electoral Commission and the police two-and-a-half years ago, and four months before the referendum itself. In February 2016, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), who was then a leading figure in the leave campaign, wrote to colleagues saying:

“It is open to the Vote Leave family to create separate legal entities, each of which could spend £700,000: Vote Leave will be able to spend as much money as is necessary to win the referendum.”

The Electoral Commission’s rules are specifically designed to stop this kind of thing. It says that we should

“stop people getting around the spending limits by coordinating several campaigns at the same time.”

We have now established that spending limits were broken by the leave campaign precisely through separate legal entities following a common plan to get around the rules. Why is it that when such intent was reported four months before the referendum, it has taken two-and-a-half years to get to this conclusion? What does it say about the integrity of this result? Is it not ironic that the so-called people’s revolt against the elite was conspiring from the get-go to get around the rules with limitless money from goodness knows what source? Does the Minister not agree that this needs to be fully investigated to cleanse the cloud that has been cast over our democracy by these findings?

[Chloe Smith]

It is exactly the case that allegations of impropriety should be investigated. As I have said a number of times, it is that that means we have a robust democracy. I hear the right hon. Gentleman’s story. In part, I think it ends with this investigation. An investigation has been carried out, and it should be welcomed that it has been carried out and that it has found a result. If, on the other hand, his points are about the efficacy of the Electoral Commission—I think he was driving at the fact that it took two and half years—then that is a matter for Parliament. The Electoral Commission is accountable to Parliament through your Committee, Mr Speaker. It is indeed an independent regulator of Government, as it should be, and it is accountable to Parliament for how it conducts investigations and indeed whether it does so quickly enough.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Pat McFadden and Chloe Smith

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

It did, but it was not put into legislation in the way that we have the opportunity to do today.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman has given way on the nature of the legislation before us as we are—after all—in Committee. I welcomed the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) about the electoral register and I am deeply alarmed that the proponent of any amendment would not have—in the right hon. Gentleman’s words—“thought through” whether it would have an effect on such an important issue as jury service. I am a supporter of votes at 16, and I shall seek to make further comments on that later, but we are now examining the quality of legislation.

[Mr McFadden]

I thank the hon. Lady for her praise of my amendment, but its effect would be clear and we have taken advice on the point. The amendment would extend to 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote on exactly the same basis as the other changes to the franchise in the rest of the Bill. As was said on Second Reading, the Bill already changes the franchise—for Gibraltar and for peers—so the amendment, like the Bill, will apply only to the EU referendum.

The amendment on EU citizens is also in this group of amendments. The franchise in the Bill is that for UK parliamentary elections, except for the exceptions that we have discussed, and the amendments would extend it to citizens of other EU countries. EU citizens currently have the right to vote in local and European elections, but not in parliamentary elections. When other EU countries have held referendums on EU accession decisions or treaty changes in recent years, EU citizens from member states outwith those countries have not been given the vote. That is true for recent referendums held in France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark and many other countries. When a member state makes a decision on its own membership of the EU, on whether to join the euro or on whether to accept treaty change, the pattern has been to use the franchise for national elections. It has not been the pattern to extend that to citizens of other EU countries. For that reason, we do not support allowing citizens of other EU countries to participate in this referendum, but we do believe that it is important to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Pat McFadden and Chloe Smith

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Miss Smith]

May I take this opportunity to thank my hon. Friend and others for their kind words regarding my role?

As I have mentioned, the green deal is a key part of supporting such green growth and the Government are taking a range of actions to help people to gain control of their household energy bills. I certainly note my hon. Friend’s suggestion and I am happy to meet him to discuss options within public finance constraints.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

May I also welcome the new Minister to her post? She will be aware of the importance to the UK economy of energy-intensive industries such as the steel, chemicals and ceramics industries. German competitors in such industries are benefiting from rebates worth more than €5 billion a year; will she consult the Chancellor and make sure that the pre-Budget report includes a special package of measures for those industries so that rising energy costs do not simply result in jobs being exported abroad?

[Miss Smith]

I know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is looking into exactly this and we shall be reporting back on it.