Political Parties and Elections Bill

If the Justice Secretary wants to put forward a proposal that constituency spending by a candidate should be controlled and capped for the 12 months before an election, which would put it on the same basis as the national cap, let him make such a proposal. I would be willing to discuss it. There are considerable problems with the idea, as there are with the fact that the national cap runs for 12 months when, as we know, unlike local elections or devolved elections, there is no certainty about when a general election will take place. However, it is at least a proposal that would have merit and could be discussed. The Electoral Commission proposed that there should be a four-month period. Such a provision was in the Bill introduced—although not by the Justice Secretary—two years ago, and did not go through, but it was a rational proposal that makes some sense and we would be willing to discuss whether something similar might be a solution to the problem. However, to revert—almost through lack of anything else—to the old discredited regime is a bit pathetic. There are so many reasons for dropping the provision that it is hard to know where to begin. The provision would reintroduce law already acknowledged to be bad. In the Fiona Jones case back in 1999, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham, remarked:"““This is a field in which misunderstanding is rife…There is no simple and decisive test to determine whether an expense is or is not an election expense within the meaning of the Act.””" The Committee on Standards in Public Life, in the report to which the Justice Secretary referred, slammed the old rules. In 1998, the committee noted explicitly that"““there is considerable doubt among individual candidates and the political parties about when, for purposes of the Representation of the People Act 1983, a constituency election campaign is deemed to have begun. There is only a limited body of case law bearing on the subject and interpretations of the Act vary considerably from constituency to constituency and from candidate to candidate.””" Those of us who have been around long enough can all remember the absurdities under the old rules. A candidate's literature could not show a photograph of him or herself alone, but it was okay if they were with someone else. Candidates were allowed to promote themselves only as associated with the policies of their party. Ridiculous and absurd artificiality was involved, with uncertainty and anxiety for candidates throughout the process. It beggars belief that we should be considering reverting to that discredited system as any part of a modern electoral system.