Political Parties and Elections Bill

I commend the final comments of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) that the electoral system must be seen to be transparent and fair. One of the realities behind the Bill is that that is not accepted as being the case. Each one of us, as a serving politician, has a duty to engage in dialogue to try to ensure that we deliver to the people of this country a political system in which they can have confidence. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) that paradoxically, even though there are things for us to consider, many people of all parties, including some whom I have known for many years, engage in party politics because they regard the political system as part of their public duty. We ought to point out that many of those people have credibility and integrity of the highest order. However, that gives us all the more reason to ensure that we have robust laws that crack down on the concerns that lead to suspicion that the political system is not as it should be. I shall start by mentioning certain aspects of the Bill that, although they may be non-controversial, I hope can be improved as it makes its way through its various stages. There is common agreement that the Electoral Commission needs improving. Most of us have been unhappy with its work, and I certainly welcome the fact that we are relaxing the limitations on those who can actively serve on it. We probably also need to consider the £200 spending limit that appears in the Bill, because there is concern in all parties that that does not reflect reality and will be an impediment not to those who wish to transgress spending rules but to those who are engaged in proper and acceptable politics. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will take account of the concerns that have been raised about the concept of entry-and-search powers. I agree with the hon. Member for Isle of Wight that if things are so serious that entry and search are necessary, it probably ought to be the police who perform that function rather than the Electoral Commission. I do not wish to trivialise the matter, but there is something Monty Pythonesque, Spanish inquisition style, about the Electoral Commission entering somebody's home. It ought not to happen to people engaged in the proper activity of party politics at local or any other level. I wish to say a few words about the trigger. I am astonished that the Liberal Democrats seem to have switched their position on it entirely. It seems to me to be a rare occasion when their principles and expediency are pulling them in the wrong direction. Both principle and expediency ought to lie on the side of having the trigger, so they should consider carefully why they have come to their conclusions about it. I should like an even stronger trigger, and the concept of introducing a local trigger is important. As my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) said, there should be no ambiguity about the debate that occurred some years ago in the House of Lords. It was entirely about the giving of reassurances that the trigger would remain in operation. That was the only reason why Lord Mackay, speaking on behalf of the Conservative party, withdrew his amendment. Opposition Members need only reread that debate to realise how central that was. I am not normally in the habit of wishing to say unkind things about other hon. Members' speeches, but the justification that the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) gave in opposition to the trigger was astonishing. He said that there were many reasons for opposing it, but I think that he gave one. When the case of my erstwhile colleague Fiona Jones came to court, that was the difficulty in drawing a legal distinction between what was within and without the rules, because of the narrow nature of the trigger at the time. I would prefer to see proper whole-Parliament spending limits locally. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea that I would like it to be separate at national level, as there is an important distinction between the two. Nevertheless, whole-Parliament spending limits make an awful lot of sense. The right hon. Member for Horsham gave no proper reason why the Conservative party oppose them, other than expediency.