Electoral Administration Bill

moved Amendment No. 100B:"Page 33, line 13, leave out ““of four months ending with”” and insert ““from the notice of the election until””" The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 100B I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 100C, 100D and 100E. The amendments would abolish the requirement for a set four-month period to count as part of expenditure. Electoral expenses start kicking in for all candidates from the date of notice of the whole, and setting a four-month period before an election from funding can mean only that it is done retrospectively, which would probably be quite hard to calculate. The date of an election is not known four months in advance, especially with a general election. As the Bill stands, there will be a situation in which election expenses are incurred without the knowledge of those who are incurring them, because they will not understand where the four-month period starts. There will also be a Catch-22 situation in which parties could have spent moneys unwittingly. That would undermine the financial planning of parties and their associations. There is a real danger that a local party association might decide to campaign on any issue as a matter of course, locally, without that being intended to contribute to a general election campaign—in a way that is far outside what the general election is about—and that it might be unfairly restricted by election expenditure rules applied in retrospect. We viewed this as being retrospective, so will the Minister please indicate that she recognises the implications of the law being retrospective and confirm that that is truly what the clauses mean? I beg to move.