Political Parties and Elections Bill

Clause 17: Candidate at parliamentary election may withhold home address from publication Debate on whether Clause 17 should stand part of the Bill. I oppose allowing Clause 17 to stand part of the Bill. Clause 17 is a very unusual clause. It was new Clause 23 in the other place and is commonly referred to as the carpetbaggers’ charter for reasons that I will explain. I, like several other Members whom I see here, have had experience of how the other place manages its business. Without intruding on private grief, I must point out that the new clause came into the Bill in a most extraordinary way. On 2 March, at Report stage in the other place, Dr Julian Lewis, Conservative MP for New Forest East, said: ""On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I should be most grateful if there were an opportunity to put new clause 23 to a vote on the grounds that it is consistent with decisions previously taken by the House about security of hon. Members’ home addresses. [Interruption.]"." Sylvia Heal, Madam Deputy Speaker, said: ""Order. In view of the comments that the hon. Gentleman has made, I have decided that in the circumstances he has outlined, I will select new clause 23 for a separate decision."—[Official Report, Commons, 2/3/09; col. 678.]" The vital bit that is omitted from that report, which I am sure is entirely accurate, is that no one actually moved the new clause. Yet there was a Division and, later in the evening, when a number of points of order were raised, Mr Gordon Prentice, among others, pointed out that he had been unable to put his Amendments 84 and 85, despite the fact that they had had the support of 216 Members of Parliament. Those amendments also should have been put. Not only was this new clause never moved or discussed, but it was given precedence over a number of amendments in other groups. It was not even included in the group that had been discussed. That is an extraordinary situation. When I was in a previous role as shadow Leader of the House for a number of years, I do not think—perhaps the Minister can advise us—that there was ever a precedent for anything being put to the House without being moved. That already raises a major question in my mind. Secondly, it is obviously essential that this issue should be debated in the other place. Unless we take out the clause in our House, it will not be debated in the other place. Those who believe that such important changes should always have a proper debate before a decision must, when we have an opportunity to do so, vote to remove this clause. The purpose of the clause is apparently to provide some privacy to candidates in an election—not, I should be clear, to Members of Parliament, because everyone at a general election is a candidate. Those who may seek to argue that this is not a matter for your Lordships’ House and that it is only a matter for the other place are, I am afraid, off beam. This is an issue that affects every single candidate in an election, by which time, of course, there are no sitting Members. The purpose of the clause, as we understand it, is to give protection to those who stand as candidates, because it is suggested that for reasons of security it is important that their home addresses should not be made available to the wider public. This is an extraordinarily naive argument. If a terrorist is thinking of attacking a parliamentary candidate, or a candidate at any level, I do not think that that terrorist will wait to see what is said on the nomination paper. I was a Member of Parliament for a good number of years and I had a local office that was widely advertised; its telephone, address and, indeed, my home address were in the telephone book. That is common practice among most Members of Parliament. If we really think that terrorists have no other way of establishing the home address of a parliamentary candidate or any other candidate, we are underrating their ingenuity. The only way in which this clause makes any sense is if it is being suggested that candidates should not be exposed to the transparent and clear view of their potential constituents. In its briefing for us, the Electoral Commission refers to the practical problems. It states that it is, ""concerned that it would potentially enable only candidates, agents, proposers, seconders and representatives of the Electoral Commission to see candidates’ full addresses. Clause 17 would therefore make it difficult for a member of the public to confirm or disprove a suspicion that a candidate does not live within the constituency that they claim. Moreover, even the people who can see the full address cannot record it for verification at a later date—as existing legislation does not allow those inspecting nomination papers to record information contained within them"." Therefore, you could give a false address and it would be impossible to verify it. It is surely in the interests of openness and transparency that candidates should be required to provide their home address, to indicate where they are based, what experience they have and what community they belong to. This has been the requirement since the Ballot Act 1872. To change that on the nod, as it were, would seem extraordinary. In November last year, the Government issued a consultation on this, to which they published their response last Thursday. However, only two MPs expressed a view, which hardly suggests a huge body of opinion waiting to change the law in this way. The two politicians and the Electoral Commission saw some reason for changing the law, but the responses of electoral administrators, returning officers, the Newspaper Society and members of the public all favoured the status quo. The only political party to respond to the consultation was my own. On behalf of our party, my noble friend Lord Rennard expressed strong opposition to the withholding of addresses. Finally, because I want to be brief and we have a lot of business yet to do, the Government suggested both at Second Reading and since that there is to be a free vote on this issue. Some of us think that all votes in your Lordships’ House should be free, but why pick this matter out for a free vote? It is an interesting suggestion. When the Commons vote took place in the extraordinary circumstances that I described, the Secretary of State, Mr Jack Straw, and the Minister responsible for the Bill, Mr Michael Wills, both firmly voted against the change. I cannot understand why we in this House have to pay particular respect to the new clause. It was bounced in the House of Commons and has no authenticity in the sense of being properly debated or discussed. It changes the law and sends it back to the middle of the 19th century. This seems to me to be a most extraordinary procedure. The Government are not prepared to give a proper lead, as Mr Jack Straw did in the other place. On those grounds, I hope that the Committee will agree that we should not treat this new clause in any way different from other amendments or other new clauses, and I certainly give notice that if at this stage the Government are disposed to think again about the issue, we will welcome that with open arms. I wait with interest to hear what the Minister has to say.