My Lords, I shall cover two or three points. I shall not go into detail about some of my concerns about the Electoral Commission, except to make a limited comment about difficulties I have at the moment. I will start by referring to comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, earlier in relation to referees. I wear my rugby referee’s tie with pride today because it is an indication of the impartiality one is required to have under all circumstances. No player or spectator ever accused me of not being impartial. They may have accused me of being incompetent, and did so volubly from the touchline, but they did not accuse me of not being impartial.
I must disagree with both my noble friends Lord Hodgson and Lady Noakes. As far as I am concerned, there are ways of dealing with the problems of the Electoral Commission. As I think many Members know, I have had more problems and more dealings with the Electoral Commission over the last 12 months than virtually anybody in this Chamber—and, my
godfathers, does it not drive you barmy? I have sympathy with the Government because they are trying to tackle the problem. All I shall say on my latest difficulty, which has been running for four or five days, is: will the Electoral Commission please look at itself rather than passing to others the responsibility for policing matters—administering elections and the like? This problem has run since 2013 to my full knowledge. It keeps saying that other people need to deal with these matters but it does not look at itself.
These clauses are not a way of tackling the problems that I and others have faced with the Electoral Commission. As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, in effect, they tell us that the home team at a rugby match shall have the right to speak to the referee and tell him how he will referee that game. I am sorry, but I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes: if you are giving guidance, however softly and subtly you do it, you are influencing the Electoral Commission and not giving others that opportunity to influence it in the same way. We need to look at the way that the commissioners are appointed, and we may need to look at the way that other organisations around it operate, but the one thing we do not need to do is to tie the commission to guidance from the Government.
4.30 pm
The only part of the comments I made when we debated this matter previously that I want to repeat is that I have had the pleasure—or difficulty, for that matter —of being on a panel abroad looking at international elections. That is a process which many Members of this House have participated in. I want the honour— I use “honour” deliberately—of being able to say to other countries, “Look at what we do. Follow that as closely as possible, because that is the best way to run your elections”. However, with these two clauses in the Bill, I am afraid that I could not do that.