House of Commons Hansard Debates for 14 Feb 2000 (pt 35)

Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow): I oppose the amendment because I have a deal of sympathy with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), who questions the need for policy development grants. If one looks at this from the viewpoint of the people who put us here, the electorate or the taxpayers, they might well think that it is a preposterous proposition that because they elect to Parliament people who have little idea of what they want to do, taxpayers must stump up further money to enable them to develop ideas--as if there was any shortage of ideas in politics anyway. A whole raft of lobbyists outside Parliament continually makes proposals and politicians do not even entertain the idea of considering many of them. Why are such proposals not considered? I submit that it is because we are generating an ever-growing class of professional politicians who are totally devoid of the common sense with which their electorate are imbued. The electorate regard this provision as untoward, unfortunate and unnecessary. We have been elected to the House, and if we do not have ideas from which we can develop policies for our parties, we do not deserve to be here in the first place.

I return to my original point: it is preposterous for taxpayers, having elected us, to be expected to put their hands in their pockets so that we can develop policies. That is what they thought they had voted us here to do. For that reason, I oppose the amendment.

Mr. Tipping: The Committee has been asked to judge the straightforward question of whether the figure for policy development grants should be £2 million, as set out in the Bill, or £10 million, as my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton) suggested. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) did us a service by pointing out that that idea is an important step forward, but the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) and the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) have their reservations.

The figures has been pitched at £2 million in part to reflect the anxiety that taxpayers and electors might have. However, more particularly, it was pitched at that level because that is the figure that the Neill committee recommended. However, what it should be is a matter of judgment.

Mr. Hogg: I want to be sure that I clearly understand the clause. Am I right in thinking that the commission has

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a discretion as to whether to recommend the making of a policy grant? As far as I can see from the Bill's language, the commission is not under a duty. If that is correct, the commission has a discretion as to whether to support a particular party or a particular policy. That is profoundly undemocratic.

Mr. Tipping: The right hon. and learned Gentleman makes an important point. It is important that partisan elements do not enter into the matter. If he examines the clause carefully, he will see that the commission will be asked to draw up a schedule--a scheme for the distribution of moneys.

Mr. Hogg: It is a discretion.

Mr. Tipping: It is a discretionary matter for the commission. It will have to draw up a scheme, consult and come forward with proposals.

Earlier, the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked what would be the role of the Secretary of State. He will receive the report from the commission and lay it before Parliament. It is not our intention that politicians per se should have an influence on decisions about grants. I acknowledge that such decisions should be kept value free and, if possible, totally away from Members of Parliament and political influence.

Whether the figure of £2 million or £10 million is right is a matter of judgment. I support the Neill committee's recommendation. It is right, because we are able to justify that sum of money. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea referred to the cost of developing policies, but opposition parties have had the benefit of extra funding and that is important to enable them to draw up and develop policies. That is why I was delighted that the money available through the Short scheme was increased significantly.

With that, I hope that the Committee will reflect carefully on the amendment and agree that £2 million is the right amount and £10 million is excessive. I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.

10.45 pm

Mr. Linton: I am sorry to see this troika break up so soon after it got started. I understood that no discretion is allowed about whether a particular party should have the grant, and I welcome my hon. Friend's assurance.

I shall not press the case for £10 million, because I doubt that it is in my hon. Friend's gift to come up with another £8 million tonight. However, if we want to turn our back on a situation in which political parties are dependent on millionaires for their funding, this is the road that we should follow, and it starts, as it has in every European country, with grants for research and development or political education. I am glad that we are starting down that road; I only wish that we were doing so more confidently.

I impress on the Committee the irony of Conservative Members complaining bitterly about the very notion of taxpayers' money going towards policy development when the first politician in this country to benefit from taxpayers' money to develop her policies was the first recipient of Short money--Baroness Thatcher, who always said that she was against state funding. The ideas that we now know as Thatcherism were developed largely with public funds.

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I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11

Education about electoral and democratic systems

Sir George Young: I beg to move amendment No. 29, in page 8, leave out line 10 and insert--

'(a) the electoral systems in use for the time being in the elections mentioned in section 19(3).'.

The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 40, in page 8, leave out line 10 and insert--

'(a) the electoral system to be used for each election held in the United Kingdom;'.

No. 41, in page 8, leave out line 11 and insert--

'(b) the systems of local government and national government in operation in the United Kingdom.'.

No. 33, in page 8, line 11, after second 'government', insert--

'in use in the United Kingdom'.

No. 30, in page 8, line 11, leave out from second 'government' to end of line 12.

No. 42, in page 8, line 12, at end insert--

'( ) Any promotion of public awareness of electoral systems or systems of government under subsection (1) shall relate only to the electoral system that will be used at a particular election or the system of government to which the election is related, and shall not contain any material relating to alternative electoral systems or systems of government.'.

No. 31, in page 8, leave out lines 22 to 26.

No. 32, in page 8, line 28, leave out--

'(whether by making grants or otherwise)'.

Sir George Young: I return to an issue that I raised on Second Reading--the duties of the commission to promote. Clause 11 makes it clear that education is not an optional power for the commission, but a duty.

The Neill committee did not envisage that function for the commission, and the Labour party did not propose that function in its evidence to the committee. Chapter 11 of the Neill report, which recommends the establishment of the commission, identified five roles for it: monitoring and recommending; an executive role registering the parties; an investigative role if something went wrong; an advisory role, mainly for political parties; and a narrow administrative role in the conduct of elections and referendums.

The role allotted to the commission in this clause was simply not recommended by Neill. Indeed, the report goes further and warns the Government against dumping extra responsibilities on the commission. Paragraph 11.4 of Neill says:

"We would only make the obvious point that the Election Commission cannot, as some of our witnesses seemed to believe, solve all problems and be a panacea for all ills. It is tempting, but not sensible, to say whenever in difficulty, 'Leave it to the Commission'. That is an approach we have sought to avoid in this report. Government, Parliament and others have to accept their responsibilities."

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The clause is a major departure from the Neill report, and a measure that it warned against.

Despite all that, in paragraphs 2.17 and 2.18 of their White Paper, Cm 4413, the Government sought to extend the Electoral Commission's remit. Not only did they want the commission to take over the existing work of Government Departments, such as encouraging people to register and reminding them when to apply for postal votes--I have no objection to that--but the draft Bill in the White Paper

"places the Electoral Commission under a duty to promote public awareness of electoral systems and matters, and of systems of local and national government and of the institutions of the European Union."

I understand that that is part of the Government's citizenship education proposals, but it is wholly inappropriate to place that duty with the commission. As drafted, the Bill brings the Electoral Commission--a fully independent body, free of any suspicion of political partisanship, to use the Government's own words--right into issues of the fiercest political controversy. That is why I am against clause 11. The public must perceive the body to be totally impartial, but it cannot control, monitor, assess and report at the same time as promoting matters of intense political controversy.

Let me go through the provisions of clause 11(1). One deals with the promotion of public awareness of electoral systems and matters. Recently, the Jenkins commission report recommended a new electoral system: AV-plus. The Minister might like to tell the Committee what has happened to the commitment to a referendum on first past the post and AV-plus--does it remain a pledge, or is it just an aspiration?

Is the commission's role to promote public awareness of AV-plus? I do not think that it should be, not least because the commission may be the referee in a referendum on that issue. If it had in advance of that referendum promoted awareness of AV-plus, it would clearly undermine public confidence in its neutrality.

Is the commission's role to promote public awareness of other types of proportional representation? Is it to get involved in the heated debate about closed or open lists? We are not talking about informing people about the existing system, so that they understand how we are all elected--I personally would not object to that, although it goes beyond the commission's role as envisaged by Neill.

The clause allows the commission--indeed, it gives it a duty--to promote awareness of electoral systems and matters generally. That invites it into sensitive political areas because some systems advantage some parties and disadvantage others. The job of informing and persuading the public about alternatives to the present voting system is not a matter for impartial public servants who sit on the commission.