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5.30 pm

Mr. Walter: I think that the Opposition have always made it clear throughout the deliberations on the Bill in the Standing Committee and, I hope, on the Floor of the House that, in our amendments and comments, we seek to improve the Bill. It will come as no surprise that there were occasions in the Standing Committee when the official Opposition and the Government found themselves on the same side in discussing Liberal Democrat amendments.

In tabling amendment No. 22, we were trying to ensure that the commission is independent. I know that those were the sentiments that were expressed by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell), but I should like to quote what the Neill committee said.

Mr. Mike O'Brien: It may assist the hon. Gentleman to know, as he develops his argument, that he does not have to convince me of the principle of the amendments. I am not far from him. My only question is whether he considers that councillors should be included in the amendment.

Mr. Walter: I thank the Minister for his intervention, but the point that I wish to make is important. Although I shall not necessarily quote the Neill committee at length to aid my argument, it is worth repeating what it said:

"An Election Commission in a democracy like ours could not function properly, or indeed at all, unless it were scrupulously impartial and believed to be so by everyone seriously involved and by the public large."

It went on to say in paragraph 11.8:

"In our view, a number of important consequences follow. The first is that the members of the Commission should not, in the normal course of events, be people who have previously been involved in any substantial way in party politics."

The substance of amendment No. 22 is that we should exclude from membership of the commission those who are, or have been, Members of Parliament, Members of the National Assembly for Wales, Members of the European Parliament, Members of the Scottish Parliament, or Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Minister asked whether local councillors should be excluded. I should like to look a little more deeply at the implications of amendment No. 1 for local councillors.

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The question is: how local do we want to get in excluding people who might sit on the commission? The hon. Member for Hazel Grove suggests that anyone who has stood for, and been elected to, a public body should be excluded. Does he--the Minister might have some views on it, too--include members of a parish council, or a community council in Wales? Does the hon. Member for Hazel Grove think that we should exclude church wardens, who hold an elected public office?

The Church of England is an established Church, governed by statutes that were passed in the House, as are members of parochial church councils of the Church of England and those who go on to stand for office--

Mr. Stunell: Although the hon. Gentleman's questions are legitimate, he is perhaps making slightly heavy weather of it. Clearly, an elected public body includes local councillors and parish and community councillors. It does not include bodies such as the Church of England, as he has indicated.

Mr. Walter: I hesitate to accept the hon. Gentleman's explanation because I believe that those elected in the Church of England--it is the only Church that is the established Church--are holders of public office. Elected churchwardens are elected by the general electorate of their parish--those who are resident in the parish. Members of parochial church councils are elected by those on an electoral register, to which anyone resident in the parish can seek registration. By implication, those who serve on bodies from the deanery synod to the General Synod of the Church of England can be regarded as having been elected.

What about parent governors of state schools? They are elected by the parents within a state school; a state school is a public body; therefore, its governing body is a public body. I think that parent governors would fall foul of the definition set out in the Liberal Democrats' amendment.

More important is amendment No. 2 and the issue of what constitutes an "office of profit". If the amendment were accepted, it would kill a later amendment standing in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends, but that is not the reason why I specifically object to it. Quite simply, the reason is that, in pursuing independence by making the amendment, we would kill off the possibility of several independent office holders joining the commission--people who would otherwise provide a great deal of weight to the Electoral Commission's independence.

In addition, the provision falls foul of the Government's proposal that the Electoral Commission should absorb the work of the boundaries commissions. The chairmen of the boundaries commissions as constituted are normally High Court judges, who are holders of an office of profit under the Crown. Therefore, the amendment would preclude from appointment to the Electoral Commission people who are already in post in bodies that are likely to be incorporated into the commission.

In passing, I should point out that if, as the Minister says, the chairmanship of the Electoral Commission is to be a full-time post and if, as I imagine they will, the part-time commissioners are to be paid a salary or form of allowance for their endeavours, they will, by virtue of

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their appointment to the commission, become holders of an office of profit under the Crown and so will, immediately on their appointment, become ineligible to continue to hold the office. Amendment No. 2 is, therefore, somewhat illogical. I shall not dwell on amendment No. 3, as it is consequential on amendments Nos. 1 and 2.

I am reassured by the Minister's intervention, in which he stated that he leans a long way toward being sympathetic to amendment No. 22. He asked whether local councillors should be included. The spirit of the amendment is to preclude from membership of the commission those who hold significant elected office. It covers Members of Parliament, of the Scottish Parliament, of the National Assembly for Wales, of the Northern Ireland Assembly and of the European Parliament, but the Conservatives would be quite content if the Government thought it necessary to extend the principle of the amendment to local councillors.

Mr. Forth: I am rather uneasy about the direction of the amendments. It seems that an unfortunate pincer movement is being deployed, whether wittingly or unwittingly--who knows, in this day of consensual politics? My right hon. and hon. Friends on the one hand, and the Liberal Democrats on the other, seem to be closing in on the unfortunate commissioners from two directions, and I am not sure that I agree with either of them.

The wording of amendment No. 1 says that a commissioner

"shall cease to hold office if he accepts nomination for office on any elected public body."

We must deal with the important distinction between nomination and election. We must consider whether it is wrong, improper or unacceptable for an electoral commissioner to allow himself even to be nominated, whether or not he is elected.

In the case of the Liberal Democrats, a mere nomination would rarely cause them to be elected, so that might seem a little hard on them. In the case of Conservatives or Labour party members, election may well follow nomination fairly regularly, so the approach is uneven. Liberal Democrat Members are being unfair on their own colleagues.

Leaving that issue to one side, I query the principle itself. The interesting contrast between amendments Nos. 1 and 22 is that my colleagues seem to seek to deny the commission the benefit of political experience, whereas the Liberal Democrats seem to wish to deny to the political process previous experience on the commission.

My argument is that an interplay between the commission and the political process may not be as undesirable as both the Liberal Democrats and my right hon. and hon. Friends suggest: the commission may well benefit from that two-way process. I suspect that we are beginning to see the effect of the bodies that we keep setting up to intervene in the political process, which Ministers keep quoting as the final word on the subject. Any possibility of a causal connection or a connection of membership between the commission and the political process is, the amendments suggest, unacceptable.

That is an odd argument, unless one starts from the proposition that any interconnection is per se undesirable. I would approach the matter from an entirely different

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direction and say that the commission may benefit from a proper degree of representation of people with political interest, prior political experience, or indeed political aspirations.

Mr. Stunell: I entirely accept the right hon. Gentleman's point. The purpose of my amendment is to make sure that there is nothing to stop a poacher becoming a gamekeeper, because I can think of nobody better than a poacher to become an effective gamekeeper. However, my amendment seeks to prevent the gamekeeper reverting to being a poacher, and perhaps setting rules as gamekeeper that will benefit him when he once again becomes a poacher. My amendment addresses precisely the right hon. Gentleman's argument.

Mr. Forth: I doubt whether the amendment would have that effect. If an individual were able to do what the hon. Gentleman suggests, and single-handedly get himself on to the commission or on to a political body, and then single-handedly influence the other commissioners or Members or Parliament, he would probably deserve what he was aiming to achieve, if he were that good. I doubt whether many people can exercise such mesmeric influence. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would.

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