My Lords, I agree very much with what has been said by both my noble friend Lord Collins and the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, who bring a tremendous amount of experience to this matter. I cannot quite match the noble Lord’s experience. I have fought sundry elections at parish, district, county and parliamentary level over the years, but by a bit of fancy footwork I have always avoided becoming an election agent. It has always struck me as the most frightening job in connection with elections.
That brings me to my observation on these amendments —that above all else one needs clarity and simplicity in this area to make the job of being an election agent less onerous and forbidding than it is at present. When we have these kinds of discussions, I often think that there is an assumption somewhere, although I cannot locate where it comes from, that there is a queue of people with tremendous experience who are dead keen to become election agents. My experience is the opposite: as a candidate you pretty well have to beg some friend of long standing to take on the responsibility, because it is a huge responsibility.
It is incumbent on us, as legislators, to make any law in this area as simple, straightforward and unambiguous as possible. That seems to be the objective behind what my noble friend is proposing. I share his concern and anxiety, particularly about the word “encouraged”, which has been developed by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. There is nothing I would add to that, other than to say: for goodness’ sake, keep the poor election agent in mind throughout this kind of discussion, because—my word—they have a heavy burden to carry.
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