Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

As I think I made clear in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster, it is much better to leave such definitions to case law, which can evolve over time. If they are defined too tightly in statute law, and then new media appear and changes take place in the way in which the media are produced, we shall find that we must continually update primary legislation in order to keep up with the changes. The hon. Gentleman put his finger on it when he referred to those older definitions and the fact that they have changed. It is better to set a wider definition. The commission can issue guidance, and if problems arise, the courts can interpret the definitions in the light of changes in the way in which media organisations work, and changes in technology. That way of proceeding will produce a tighter definition than trying to include too much detail in primary legislation, which will then become out of date. The hon. Gentleman asked about our use of the words ““broadcast”” and ““programme””. Again, we wanted the clause to be consistent with the third-party expenditure provisions in the PPRA, and also with the parent terms in the Broadcasting Act 1996, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. We did not want to open up gaps enabling people to argue that the words did not mean what they had in those original pieces of legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster referred to new media and changes in communication and technology, particularly in the context of the internet, e-mail and similar techniques. Because this will be the first United Kingdom-wide referendum to use the framework in the PPRA, one of the commitments that the Government have given to the Lords Constitution Committee, which has prepared a report on referendums, is that once it has taken place we will review the way in which it has operated, in order to establish whether we should make any legislative changes—changes in the framework, not just in specific referendums. As my hon. Friend will know, the coalition Government are committed to introducing more referendums on both European and local matters. We now have a good opportunity to review the working of the system and to establish what practical changes are needed, given that there are likely to be more referendums in the future.