Political Parties and Elections Bill: Committee Stage Report
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RESEARCH PAPER 08/91 Political Parties and 16 DECEMBER 2008 Elections Bill: Committee Stage Report This is a report on the Committee Stage of the Political Parties and Elections Bill 2007-08 produced in response to a recommendation of the Modernisation Committee in its report on The Legislative Process (HC 1097, 2005-06). The Bill has been reintroduced as Bill 4 of 2008-09 and is awaiting a date for report stage in the Commons. Oonagh Gay Isobel White PARLIAMENT AND CONSTITUTION CENTRE HOUSE OF COMMONS LIBRARY RESEARCH PAPER 08/91 Recent Library Research Papers include: 08/75 Economic Indicators, October 2008 06.10.08 08/76 Social Indicators 08.10.08 08/77 Banking Bill [Bill 147 of 2007-08] 10.10.08 08/78 Unemployment by Constituency, September 2008 15.10.08 08/79 Climate Change Bill [HL]: Committee Stage Report 22.10.08 08/80 Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]: Committee 24.10.08 Stage Report 08/81 Employment Bill [HL]: Committee Stage Report 31.10.08 08/82 Economic Indicators, November 2008 04.11.08 08/83 Unemployment by Constituency, October 2008 12.11.08 08/84 US Elections 2008 14.11.08 08/85 Banking Bill: Committee Stage Report 25.11.08 08/86 Interlocking crises in the Horn of Africa 24.11.08 08/87 Small Business, Insolvency and Redundancy 25.11.08 08/88 Parliamentary Approval for Deploying the Armed Forces: An 27.11.08 Introduction to the Issues 08/89 Economic Indicators, December 2008 04.12.08 08/90 Turkey today 08.12.08 Research Papers are available as PDF files: • to members of the general public on the Parliamentary web site, URL: http://www.parliament.uk • within Parliament to users of the Parliamentary Intranet, URL: http://hcl1.hclibrary.parliament.uk Library Research Papers are compiled for the benefit of Members of Parliament and their personal staff. Authors are available to discuss the contents of these papers with Members and their staff but cannot advise members of the general public. We welcome comments on our papers; these should be sent to the Research Publications Officer, Room 407, 1 Derby Gate, London, SW1A 2DG or e-mailed to [email protected] ISSN 1368-8456 2 RESEARCH PAPER 08/91 Summary The Public Bill Committee considered the Bill in 11 sessions but did not complete its scrutiny of Clause 10 which was agreed to at the last sitting. Clauses 11, 14 and 15 were not considered by the Committee and were also agreed to. Four Government new clauses were added to the Bill. The Committee took evidence from the Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, Ministry of Justice officials, Sir Hayden Phillips, Sir Christopher Kelly, the Electoral Commission, Professor Keith Ewing, Professor Justin Fisher, Dr Michael Pinto-Duschinsky and representatives of the Labour Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats. The Committee was generally in agreement about the provisions in the Bill to allow politically nominated Electoral Commissioners despite opposition to this from Professor Ewing and Professor Fisher in their evidence. The Electoral Commission also expressed concern about the problems that might arise from having Commissioners who had been politically active only recently. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats sought, unsuccessfully, to amend the Bill to require the leaders of the three main parties to nominate Commissioners to prevent a situation occurring where one party might fail to make a nomination. The Committee considered the compliance role of the Commission and there was a close division on an amendment from the Conservatives to require the Commission to publish guidance on compliance with PPERA. The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and SNP did not accept the Minister’s explanation that the amendment would unnecessarily restrict the Commission’s flexibility. The amendment was defeated by 8 votes to 9. There was concern that the new section 146 and schedule 19A to PPERA inserted by the Bill would give the Commission much wider powers to enter premises and to demand documents from individuals. The Minister acknowledged concerns about the powers and indicated that the Electoral Commission was considering its position on powers to enter premises. The Committee considered several amendments to restrict the Commission’s discretion to use its new powers. The Minister set out the safeguards against arbitrary action by the Commission and moved an amendment to make clear that if the Commission suspects an offence or contravention has occurred, and it wishes to enter premises, the application for a warrant must be authorised by the Chief Executive or designated member of staff of the Commission. There were further Government amendments to require the Electoral Commission to publish guidance on the use of their powers under Schedule 1 and to require the Commission to publish reports on the use of its powers in its annual reports. The Minister also confirmed that the Commission will be required to publish guidance on how it will use the civil sanctions before it is given the power to impose them and that this guidance was expected to be issued at the same time as the guidance on investigatory powers in January 2009. The Committee considered whether the sanctions which would be made available to the Commission would be proportionate. The Minister said that the Government had decided to use the sanctions set out in the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 in 3 RESEARCH PAPER 08/91 the Bill and indicated that the offences under PPERA which would attract civil sanctions in lieu of criminal prosecutions would be set out in secondary legislation. The Conservatives sought clarification about the use of ‘stop notices’ and the Minister said that a very high threshold must be overcome before they were used by the Commission. An amendment to require the Electoral Commission to publish an annual report on the use of its civil sanction powers was debated. Michael Wills said that the Government had been persuaded by the principles behind these amendments but would consult the Electoral Commission before proposing amendments to the Bill. The Government introduced a series of amendments to Clause 8, (declarations as to source of donations). Michael Wills said that after listening to concerns about the burden placed on parties by Clause 8 the Government had decided to raise the threshold for such declarations to be completed from £200 to £5,000 for donations to central parties and £1,000 for local accounting units. The Bill was amended accordingly. Clause 10 on triggering was not reached until 3.15pm on the last sitting day of 20 November 2008. Martin Linton (Labour) introduced amendments to establish a system whereby the candidate expenditure limits should apply from a specific point in the parliamentary cycle. Eleanor Laing (Conservative) expressed some sympathy with this amendment, but concentrated on the uncertainty of the triggering provisions prior to PPERA. David Howarth (Liberal Democrat) argued for a permanent local spending limit. However, the amendment was negatived at 4pm when the committee ran out of time for further debate. The Committee were in agreement about the provisions of Clause 12 for the administration of the electoral register if a general election fell within the annual canvass period. The Minister announced that the provision relating to the administration of the European parliamentary elections would not come into effect until after the elections on 4 June 2009. He also indicated that the Government was exploring whether it was possible for the European elections in Scotland and Wales in 2009 to be run at a local level by local authority returning officers. Three new clauses introduced by the Government were added to the Bill. New clause 17 makes provision for the responsibility for the storage of Parliamentary election documents in Scotland to be transferred to the Parliamentary returning officers. New clause 18 reforms the system for filling vacant European Parliament seats in Northern Ireland and new clause 19 relates to the Co-ordinated Online Record of Electors scheme and aims to ensure that the functions of the CORE scheme to prevent electoral fraud work effectively. The Conservatives introduced a number of new clauses to introduce individual registration of electors; to impose a moratorium on electoral pilot schemes for 5 years; to allow a committee to conduct a review of piloting; to require British citizens living overseas to provide their passport number each year they re-register; to require electors to opt in to the edited version of the electoral register instead of being required to opt out and to require voters to produce an ID document as evidence of identity at the polling station. None of these new clauses were added to the Bill. 4 RESEARCH PAPER 08/91 CONTENTS I Provisions of the Bill 7 II Second Reading 8 III Committee Stage 10 A. Evidence sessions 10 1. Electoral fraud 10 2. Hayden Phillips’s proposals 11 3. ‘Triggering’ 11 4. Donations 12 5. Electoral Commission 13 B. Consideration of the Bill by the Committee 13 1. Electoral Commissioners 13 2. Compliance role of the Commission 15 3. Investigatory powers of the Commission 15 4. Civil sanctions 18 5. Other electoral provisions 22 6. Individual voter registration 24 7. Declarations on donations – Government amendments to Clause 8 25 8. Party funding issues 27 9. Triggering - Clause 10 28 10. Other amendments which were not debated 28 C. Operation of the Committee 29 D. Carry over of the bill to session 2008-09 29 Appendix I Members of the Public Bill Committee 31 Appendix II Stages of the Bill 32 5 RESEARCH PAPER 08/91 6 RESEARCH PAPER 08/91 I Provisions of the Bill The Bill takes forward the proposals for immediate legislation in the white paper, Party finance and expenditure in the UK, published in June 2008, with some modifications.