Political Parties and Elections Bill

I want to make some progress, if I may. Up to now, the Electoral Commission has faced a genuine dilemma, given the powers available to it: either reprimand or reference to the police, but nothing in between. Clause 3 and schedule 2 give the Electoral Commission access to a flexible range of civil sanctions that may be imposed in relation to certain offences and contraventions under the 2000 Act. The schedule sets out the range of new civil penalties available to the commission, when the commission is able to apply those sanctions, to whom they apply and what appeal processes are available to an individual or organisation subject to a sanction. Which of the offences in the 2000 Act will attract civil sanctions will be set out in secondary legislation. I want to give a reassurance to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham that when a civil penalty is applied by the Electoral Commission, no criminal prosecution can be instituted. That provision appears in paragraph 4 of schedule 2 to the Bill. In practice, therefore, the provision reduces the scope for criminal reference, rather than increasing it. Clause 4 provides that each person proposed for appointment as an electoral commissioner must be selected in accordance with a procedure put in place and overseen by the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission. This makes it clear that responsibility for the oversight of the recruitment and selection process remains with the Speaker's Committee. Clause 5 enables the appointment of four commissioners with recent political experience. Clause 6 increases the minimum number of electoral commissioners that may be appointed, and clause 7 reduces the time period for restrictions on past political activity for Electoral Commission staff. We have gone rather further than the Committee on Standards in Public Life proposed, but I think we have done so in a sensible direction. Clause 8 is designed to increase the transparency of political donations by requiring donors giving above a limit—currently £200 in the Bill—to a political party to declare whether the money is its own. If it has received a sum above the limit"““with a view to, or otherwise in connection with””" the making of the donation, it must declare that to be the case and go on to declare whether it believes that certain sections of the Act apply. Those provisions supplement the existing requirements of the 2000 Act by making it clear that the identities of the true donor, on whose behalf the donation is made, must be given to the recipient of the donation. If a donor declares that those sections of the 2000 Act do not apply, they must explain why.