Political Parties and Elections Bill

My hon. Friend makes absolutely the right point. It is odd that so many of the interventions by Labour Members have focused on what is not in the Bill. I share their disappointment that the Bill is half-baked. It is a hotch-potch Bill. It is spatchcocked together from the lesser parts of the Hayden Phillips report. Some parts come from legislation that was long ago abandoned as unworkable, and some other parts spring apparently from nowhere and so far as we can see are wanted neither by any of the parties nor by the Electoral Commission. Parts of the Bill are, of course, unexceptionable, and it is important that we deal with them properly. We are content with the proposals for the composition of the Electoral Commission, and I agree totally with the way in which the Justice Secretary set out the case on that. I understand the commission's concern that it does not want commissioners appointed from the party political world, but I think we all agree that that is a worthwhile step. It is important that the commission's deliberations in regulating party funding and campaigning, and enforcing that regulation, should be informed by commissioners who have direct, real-world experience of what it is like to raise money and to manage political parties. An advisory committee is very well in its way, but it is no real substitute for having people with direct party experience involved in the decision-making process. Just to be clear, we envisage that nominees in this category would be politicians no longer in the active front line of politics, in order to provide the necessary distance and objectivity, but who were still close enough to be reasonably current with present-day practice. Likewise, the civil sanctions proposals seem to make sense, providing helpful speed and flexibility to the commission. We shall want to scrutinise them carefully in Committee, but in a positive spirit. The proposals in clause 12 have merit but, as the shadow Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), said, we regret that there is still no plan to introduce individual voter registration in Britain, as opposed to Northern Ireland. We believe that that would significantly improve security and limit electoral fraud. The failure to introduce the much tried and tested Northern Ireland system, which has cut fraud in the Province and to which everyone, including the Government, have been committed—there is genuine consensus—allows the possibility of electoral fraud that could readily be avoided. We therefore propose to table in Committee amendments that would give effect to what the Government have already said should be implemented. I hope that they will command consensus throughout the Committee and the House.