Political Parties and Elections Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the very careful and positive way in which he has responded to our amendments. I am sorry that his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is not in the Chamber, because he was so effective in demolishing this argument that everything has to be agreed by total consensus across the parties. I wonder what the Minister’s position would be if there was complete agreement between the Conservative and Labour Parties on an issue of this sort, but the Liberal Democrats did not agree. Would he still say that there was consensus, or would he say that the Liberal Democrats effectively had a veto on any agreement? The danger with the concept that we can do something in this field only when everybody is agreed is that we will not make any serious reforms to our political system at all. There will always be somebody who does not want to move. I have to say that we are usually rather more in advance when it comes to reform. However, this idea that consensus is essential, and therefore the slowest mover has a veto, is a dangerous new tendency in government. I do not see it in any other walk of life where government seeks to interfere or control. I hope I am not putting words into the Minister’s mouth, but I think that I can detect from what he is saying that the Government take very seriously the sort of anxieties and concerns that we have expressed. He did not say that he is seeking to reconstitute any cross-party discussions but I hope that it can be read into his words that he is not giving up on seeking to achieve some agreement, even if it is not complete, 100 per cent consensus. As he rightly says, his colleagues in the other place are increasingly anxious about the failure of the present regulations, particularly in terms of qualifying expenditure, to prevent interference on a scale that has never been experienced before. Not in the past 100 years has there been such considerable expenditure by national parties to encourage people to support local candidates within the constituency. He was very generous in identifying that this was an issue of concern which the Liberal Democrats are not alone in identifying. He is right that we need in some form or other to go back to the issues in Schedule 4A, and it may not be our precise amendments that will be necessary. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, who is engaged this afternoon and has given her apologies to me and perhaps also to the Minster, shares our anxieties on this score. If the Minister is saying—I think he is, and I hope he will intervene if I have it wrong—that there may be other ways in which we can tighten and improve how these categories of expenditure are currently treated, then my colleagues and I very warmly welcome that. Frankly, however, it is not very helpful simply to say that there will be an urgent meeting some time in the summer. That does not communicate to me the sense of urgency that even this House would feel in giving priority to this important issue. The Minister has been generous in saying that these are matters of concern to him and his colleagues in government. I hope it will be accepted that the issue is certainly of concern to members on different sides of the House. It did not sound as though even the noble Lord, Lord Bates, speaking on behalf of the Conservatives, is really totally satisfied with the lack of clarity. In the mean time, I take at face value precisely what the Minister has said. I hope we will see some progress, outwith the discussions on this Bill, before the Summer Recess. On those terms, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 67. Amendment 67 withdrawn. Amendments 68 to 73 not moved.