Electoral Administration Bill

moved Amendment No. 119A:"After Clause 55, insert the following new clause—" ““POLICY DEVELOPMENT GRANTS: DEFINITION OF ““REGISTERED PARTY””    In section 12(1) of the 2000 Act (policy development grants), for paragraph (b) substitute— ““(b)   a registered party is ““represented”” if there are at least two members of— (i)   the House of Commons, (ii)   the Scottish Parliament, (iii)   the National Assembly for Wales, (iv)   the Northern Ireland Assembly, or (v)   the European Parliament,    belonging to the party who— (i)   have made and subscribed the oath required by the Parliamentary Oaths Act 1866 (or the corresponding affirmation or the oath, affirmation or equivalent required by each of the institutions in sub-paragraphs (i) to (v) above), and (ii)   are not disqualified from sitting or voting in that institution.”””” The noble Lord said: This amendment introduces a new clause to the Bill which alters the eligibility criteria for the policy development grant scheme so that parties with at least two Members elected to either the House of Commons, European Parliament, Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales or the Northern Ireland Assembly would be eligible to receive a policy development grant. The Electoral Commission says that it welcomes this amendment, which largely reflects its own recommendations to broaden the eligibility criteria for policy development grants, in order that parties with at least two Members elected to any of the institutions named above would be eligible to receive a share of such funding. The commission believes that, in order to accommodate the expansion of the scheme, the annual amount provided for policy development grants should be increased. Currently, policy development grants, totalling £2 million annually, are restricted to parties which have two or more MPs in the House of Commons. The three largest parties in the House of Commons each receive grants of over £400,000. The Electoral Commission has recommended that this is extended to change the qualifying criteria. We argue that if proportional representation delivers diversity of political opinion in a democracy, then it is profoundly unfair to bar parties from development funding in the Scottish and European Parliaments. This denies funding support to the Green Party, among others; and the Green Party has two MEPs and seven MSPs. As the Committee will know, the main argument that the Government have produced against accepting our amendment is not principle, so they say, but logistics. They say that they cannot legislate for a scheme which has not yet been worked out in detail. This, of course, is nonsense, and the civil servants know it. The original policy development grant provisions were approved well before the Electoral Commission presented a draft scheme to government. If need be, all that it requires is a delay to the commencement order in the current Bill to allow the commission to adapt the scheme for new entrants. There are two angles to the Government’s attitude. First, the Government have said to date that the commission accepts their reasons for not including this in the Bill. That has been blown out of the water by the commission’s own briefing on these amendments. It would hardly welcome the amendment if it thought that it were not practicable. Secondly, rather ironically, our Amendment No. 119A sits side by side with the very new Amendment No. 119B, which is the amendment signalled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, at the weekend, to require parties to report loans as well as donations. On the one hand, the Government have said that they have not had time to develop a practicable response to the recommendations on policy development grants, which were presented to the Government all of 15 months ago, in December 2004; on the other hand, within the space of a week, they have managed to rush forward an entirely new amendment on loans to react to the current crisis. If it is possible to develop the loans amendment so quickly, then it is entirely reasonable to expect the Government to have included the Electoral Commission’s modest recommendations on policy development grants. As there is no objection in principle and as the Government’s reasons for delay have been rather blown out of the water, I hope that the Government will be able to accept this amendment, particularly since I cannot imagine that any Minister, least of all the noble Baroness, would have the brazen effrontery to try to say that it is not possible to put it forward when they are going to move an amendment in the next few minutes which must have needed a great deal more preparation to put forward. I hope that not only will the Government accept the amendment but that I will also be supported by the other parties interested in this matter because it is a question of fair justice and equality to the minorities in this country. I beg to move.