Political Parties and Elections Bill

None of the matters that we are considering is now enormously contentious, but I want to make one or two comments, especially about clause 5 and Lords amendment 54. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) is right that we have gone back and forth on clause 5 about political commissioners. It is a difficult and delicate subject, because introducing an expressly political element into the Electoral Commission will always be difficult when its tradition has been non-political and deliberately distanced from politics, for obvious reasons. However, we all agree that the commission could do with a more experienced, perhaps more down-to-earth element in its membership. That requires overcoming some difficulty in appointing the political commissioners. I remain slightly nervous of the party leader route for appointing political commissioners. It is obviously better for party leaders to propose three nominees rather than one because that means that we are not dealing with direct patronage, with which I have some difficulty. I am still unclear about exactly how the process will work from there. What will the precise procedure be for deciding which of the three is to be appointed? I would prefer a much more open procedure, similar to that for other public appointments, whereby something like open competition is introduced. In an ideal world, I would prefer more open competition for the posts. That is my first worry. Why have the Government rejected a rather more normal process of appointment in such cases? The second point is the one that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) is quite right to raise over and over. We now live in a multi-legislature, multi-political system polity—we have the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the London assembly. Our political system is far more complex than it was 20 years ago. It seems odd, to say no more than that, that the ruling party in a very important part of this country—Scotland—will not be represented on the commission. I made the following point in Committee and I repeat it now—indeed, this fundamental problem would have been dealt with by a perfectly sensible amendment that the hon. Gentleman tabled on Report, but it was not voted on, even though other amendments that were not debated were voted on. Why should we not transfer responsibility for Scottish elections to Scotland? Should that not be part of the devolution settlement? Why is a UK body responsible for specifically Scottish elections? I do not understand why that should be the case, and I urge the Government to think about it further. On Lords amendment 54 and the warrant procedure, I can see what the Government are doing and what Members of the House of Lords were doing, but I am a bit confused about how the system will work in practice. In particular, it is a condition of obtaining a warrant that""permission to inspect…has been requested by the Commission and has been unreasonably refused"" by the person against whom the inspection request was made. However, how is it to be decided whether the refusal was unreasonable? The application appears to be for a warrant, which is issued ex parte, with only one of the parties present. Warrants are granted by magistrates in living rooms. My wife is a magistrate and she has granted warrants in our living room. Granting a warrant is not a formal court procedure, with both parties present. Without both parties present, how is it to be fairly decided that the refusal was unreasonable? I fear that the provisions have not been fully thought through. Nevertheless, I accept the need for safeguards—indeed, safeguards in this area are important—and I welcome all the other amendments.