Electoral Administration Bill

Let me say at the outset that I have nothing but admiration for the Electoral Commission. It has proved itself to be an excellent body. It is doing the job for which it was formed: it has from time to time given robust and, for the Government, probably not very comfortable advice; and it has demonstrated, par excellence, what an electoral commission should do. So I have nothing against the Electoral Commission. However, I have anxieties. I accept that the clause provides that the Electoral Commission ““may”” be designated as a CORE keeper; it is permissive—it does not say that it ““shall”” be a CORE keeper—but there seems to be an assumption that the CORE keeper will be the Electoral Commission. I ask about this only because it seems to me that the Electoral Commission’s job is to oversee the probity, integrity and accuracy of what is being done and to report on it. It is not its job to manage the system. Nor should it just be given the job of managing it because other public authorities might like to bid for that. I have tried to dig out how much the scheme will cost to run. We know that it will be built into local government finance but we do not know yet what the core element of the CORE will cost. Will it be a big organisation? Will it be a small organisation at the top? Will it just be someone twiddling with a computer or will it be 15 or 100 people? On that will depend what the organisation or the running of CORE will cost. If it is going to be more than a very small management organisation, under any business case it should be put out to tender. I see that the Electoral Commission might be evaluated as a suitable organisation to manage the CORE and be paid for doing so, but I worry when a body that is being paid to manage something is also the organisation that is scrutinising it. Those are my concerns. I am sure that the Electoral Commission would do the job perfectly well and I have no doubt that it has someone who could be separated out to form a different arm of the organisation. However, I do not think it is its job, and that is why we have tabled this amendment. We need to clarify what is involved in managing the CORE and in being the keeper, how many keepers there will be and whether the number will burgeon. We need to see whether it is appropriate for the Electoral Commission to be named in the Bill, which is unusual in my experience. It is not usual to suggest in a Bill that an organisation might be given a job to do. We need to look for the best-value management of this organisation and for the best people to run it. We need to be sure that if the Electoral Commission is involved, its overseeing arm and its managing arms are separate. I beg to move.