Political Parties and Elections Bill

My Lords, the amendment is in the name also of my noble friend Lord Henley. The amendments in this group follow on from a discussion that we had in Grand Committee, at cols. GC 93-96 of the Official Report, on 29 April. We sought there to elicit from the Minister some examples of offences which might give rise to criminal sanctions. The Minister said in response, at col. GC 96, that he would "write to me"—to use that famous term—with some examples. I waited with bated breath, thinking of nothing of else during the entire month of May and waiting only for this letter from the Minister to arrive. And duly it did, at 11 o’clock last night. It ran to some seven pages, and I am afraid that I have not been as assiduous as I should have been and have not managed to digest all of it. However, I have a few questions. I invite the Minister to, in his usual thorough way, walk us through the letter that he sent and highlight what he intended by this measure. Our concerns arose from the Committee on Standards in Public Life report of January 2007, which stated on page 35 that, currently, ""the only sanctions that the Electoral Commission has if parties do not comply with legislation is to name and shame or, if the offence is sufficiently serious, to refer it to the Crown Prosecution Service for criminal prosecution"." In its fifth report, the committee made it clear that the Electoral Commission should not have any substantial judicial power. The Government accepted this recommendation and the committee continues to believe that this is the right approach. We, too, believe that. What we sought in tabling these probing amendments in Grand Committee was to have on the record some further examples of the types of offences that might be engaged. I shall carefully listen to, and read, the Minister’s response. I beg to move.