Political Parties and Elections Bill

My Lords, I support the remarks of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. I can see exactly that sort of situation arising. We have seen in the media recently vendettas built up against certain politicians, which is easy when one sees a large number of newspapers and the BBC taking a particular line, which may not be based on fact. I was recently involved in a case in relation to the Speaker of the House of Commons. Most of the stuff printed in the newspapers was downright lies, yet a certain perception grew up about the person in this case. A perception can be created and acted on. This House could even be pushed into taking action against Members because of fear of the media, but that applies even more so in the House of Commons. A political campaign could be manufactured against a Member of Parliament and in the constituency there could be a movement to get rid of that Member on an entirely political basis. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, ought to think carefully. I hope that he might speak a little more. For example, I am particularly disappointed that the seconder of his amendment, my good friend the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, is not here; he probably knows more about all aspects of this subject than anyone present. Could the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, tell us why the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, is not able to be with us to lend his vocal support to this amendment? My last point is the one that I made in my first intervention, which the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, batted away in an insouciant manner as if it was irrelevant, but it is very relevant. The reason why we have seen the petitions and campaigns growing up in constituencies about individual Members of Parliament is that MPs have been elected by the first past the post system and are accountable. Real democracy lies in that accountability of individual Members, which is there in first past the post but not in the arithmetical correlation between the number of votes cast and the number of Members of Parliament in some fancy scheme devised by the Liberal Democrats or others. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred to my own election to the Scottish Parliament. That was through a system that is entirely wrong—I am its beneficiary, but I do not like the system. In a list system, how would this work? I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, might explain this. Let us suppose that a list system was introduced at the behest of the Liberal Democrats, particularly one like that for the elections that we have just had for the European Parliament. How could that system work then? The noble Lord’s proposal is very naive. Since a former leader of the Liberal Democrats is present with us, he might also consider a situation where a Mr Michael Brown gave a huge amount of money to a particular party which turned out not to be his but to be given illegally. If that party did not return the money, would that come under this particular category? The noble Lord is opening a can of worms with this amendment and perhaps he would think carefully before pressing it.