My Lords, this amendment seeks simply to tidy up an anomaly created by the government amendments here and on Report. My noble and learned friend informed us on Report last week that the threshold for registration would be £20,000 in England, £10,000 in each of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, or £9,750 if the spending was to take place in one constituency. In other words, the lowest of the spending limits in the Bill—the £9,750 constituency limit—is exactly equal to the threshold for registration if the activity is focused in that constituency.
The Government’s approach is the same as that I took in my initial amendments on thresholds in Committee. However, I was then persuaded by the Electoral Commission, with the very explicit advice that,
“this approach would cause significant workability problems, since in practice campaigners will either remain below the registration threshold or will be in breach of a spending limit”.
It went on:
“We therefore do not support this amendment”.
The very valid point it was making was that, if you need to have a point of registration, it must be lower than the spending limit with which the activity is concerned, so there are two quite separate processes. First, an organisation says, “I am spending X, so I need to register”. Then it goes on to say, “I have now spent Y, so I cannot spend any more”. The commission has said very clearly on a number of occasions that X and Y cannot be at the same level, but that is the effect of the present situation arising from the recent government amendments.
My amendment therefore sets X, which is the threshold for registration if you are spending in just one or two constituencies, at £5,000 and leaves Y—the Government’s proposed constituency limit—at £9,750. This provides the process of spending, registration, more spending, then reaching the limit—which is exactly what the Electoral Commission has indicated is desirable and essential. I therefore hope that the Minister will recognise that, even today, the Electoral Commission is saying that the Government’s amendments in this area are just not quite right. Importantly, they are defective.
3.15 pm
Indeed, citing the exchange we had, the Commission says:
“Ministers suggested that where an unregistered campaigner reaches the limit on spending in a constituency, it must register with the Commission. We do not think the Bill in fact has the effect of requiring registration, although it makes it an offence for an unregistered campaigner to spend in excess of the £9,750 constituency limit”.
We simply cannot afford to ignore this strong advice from the independent commission, which was set up by Parliament—and is responsible to it—to monitor and police the law. I admit I do not know quite why it disagrees with the Minister because as he and I read the Bill the campaigner would have to register if their spending in a constituency reached £9,750. However, it is really serious if anything is not clear, and this is unclear. It is therefore the responsibility of your Lordships’ House to sort it.
As I said on Report, even if the Bill does what my noble friend intends, it would still leave a position where a limit in the Bill could be reached—or very nearly so—without any expenses return having to be submitted. I cannot think of any other area of electoral law where this is the case. It is necessary for the constituency threshold to be lower than the constituency spending limit. None of that affects the very welcome and desirable changes to the effective national thresholds made by my noble friends on the Front Bench. These changes were desired by all sides and will ensure that smaller, national organisations are not brought within the purview of the legislation. However, it is crucial to get the operation of the constituency limits right. Their introduction is at the heart of what the Bill is for. If we get that wrong, people will ask why on earth we brought it in in the first place. I am sure the Minister will not introduce the red herring of RPA limits which are not relevant because if they were sufficient to deal with this problem much of this section of the Bill would not be necessary at all.
Without the changes I am suggesting, there is not only the workability question raised by the Electoral Commission but an in-principle problem. Somebody could spend £19,499.98 in two English constituencies—£9,749.99 in each—without even registering. I am not wedded to the figure of £5,000, but it is quite a considerable sum for any organisation to which we are currently referring to spend in a particular constituency. If my noble friend wishes to look at it again, it could be £6,000 or £7,000. The key issue is that it must be less than the limit figure. I remind noble Lords on all sides of the House—especially ex-MPs—that there are stringent, carefully monitored constraints on the amount that a candidate can spend and paperwork is required for well below £9,750 from every candidate in every constituency. Leaving things as they are would create a real loophole whereby a campaigner could exert a significant effect on a constituency result without any public knowledge of the spending or the source of the money. Where is the transparency there? This could undermine the whole purpose of the Bill.
On that basis, I hope the Minister can either accept this amendment, perhaps knowing he will need to tidy it up tomorrow in the other place, or undertake to bring forward tomorrow anyway a government amendment in lieu to sort out lines 38 to 40 on page 16. I am sure that the Electoral Commission would support any such change. This is no big policy change: it is just recognition of a chance to get right something fundamental to the operation of the regime which the Bill puts in place. I beg to move.