Political Parties and Elections Bill

She certainly is. Members are generally happy to comply with reasonable requirements to register donations, even if the rules are not quite as clear as we might hope, and we had a very good debate on that earlier. The simpler the rules are, the better it is for all Members to ensure that they comply, and it is not unreasonable to expect positive support and guidance from the commission itself. If some Members refuse to comply with reasonable requests, commit serious crimes or seek to evade their responsibilities, no reasonable person would think that the commission should not have the power to act, with the appropriate checks and balances, of course. Concern has been expressed that the Electoral Commission has in the past been biased against the party of Government. I hope that is not true, and I hope it never will be, but it will be for the new commission chair to demonstrate a number of principles that I believe will correct the imbalance and bring the commission more into public view. The principles are: the commission should devise new ways of being open and transparent to Parliament, and I hope that the new chair will ensure that is so. I also hope that it will swiftly unify procedures with the Register of Members' Interests; we need to know precisely when that will happen, and I hope the Minister will be able to tell us in his reply. Non-compliance should be decriminalised as much as possible where it is clear that mistakes have been made and there was no intent to undermine the legislation or to take in funds fraudulently and try to disguise them, and that is where new clause 3 comes in. The use of penalties and sanctions—which the Electoral Commission has, and will be given more of—will need to be monitored externally; new clause 4 addresses that. Finally, there must be more dialogue with Members of Parliament to ensure that the commission has more genuine political support from all parts of the House; only then can it do its job, both politically and in the public's view, to a standard we would expect and the public can trust.