My Lords, government Amendment 121 concerns the details about candidates that appear on ballot papers at parliamentary elections. We are bringing forward this amendment in response to concerns raised by Members in the other place.
Currently, candidates at parliamentary elections are required to disclose on the ballot paper either their home address in full or the name of the constituency in which the home address is located. The original purpose of requiring candidates to provide information about their address was so that electors could identify them as specific individuals. Given that MPs are elected on an individual basis, they need to be identifiable, even if many electors may make choices by party affiliation. The current requirements were introduced by the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 and give candidates the option of having just the constituency they reside in recited on the ballot paper instead of their home address. This was intended to provide security and privacy for candidates, while still ensuring electors can see if a candidate has a local connection to where they are standing.
We have listened to concerns raised in the other House that there should be a further option for candidates who wish to indicate in a more commonly understood description where they live, without sharing their full address, so that their security can be better protected. The amendment intends to enable candidates to use the local authority area in which their home address is located as the address they give. We consider that the local authority will be a familiar and comprehensible indication of locality to most people. I beg to move.
Amendment 121A (to Amendment 121)