Minutes of the Eleventh Meeting, Tuesday
18 January 2005
Present: The
Rt Hon Michael J Martin MP, Speaker, in the Chair
The Rt Hon Alan Beith MP, Chairman, Constitutional
Affairs Committee
Mrs Angela Browning MP
The Rt Hon Lord Falconer of Thoroton QC, Lord
Chancellor
Sir Gerald Kaufman MP
The Rt Hon Nick Raynsford MP, Minister for Local
Government, Regional Governance and Fire
Mr Peter Viggers MP
Apologies: Lady
Hermon MP, Mr Humphrey Malins CBE MP
1. Reappointment of Electoral Commissioners
The Speaker reported that the proposed reappointment
of the two retiring Electoral Commissioners had been debated in
a Delegated Legislation Committee on Monday 17th January and that
the reappointment motion would be put to the House on Wednesday
19th January.
2. The Speaker's Committee Review of the Electoral
Commission
The Speaker thanked members who had sent in comments
on the draft terms of reference circulated by the Secretary. Mr
Raynsford commented that these needed to be amended to ensure
that the Commission's relations with its stakeholders were fully
covered as this was an area where there were general perceptions
of weakness. Other members agreed, citing perceptions of a general
lack of awareness of political realities on the part of the Commission
and of some lack of focus and structure in its general approach;
and areas where the Commission engaged in activity, such as training
for electoral officers, which cut across the responsibilities
of others while paying insufficient regard to what they were doing.
Members agreed that while it was imperative that
the Commission remain non-partisan and independent of Government,
it was nonetheless vital that it engaged effectively with the
political process. Consequently, it was essential that Commissioners,
although deliberately chosen for their lack of recent grounding
in active politics, were politically aware, and had in particular
an appreciation of how party politics operated in practice, both
at local and national level. There was general agreement that
how this might best be achieved would be something that should
be looked at in the course of the review; where there was general
agreement across the parties about the best approach to a practical
problem, this should be seen by the Commission as a powerful influencing
factor.
The Lord Chancellor said that one of the Committee's
functions should be to reinforce the Commission's standing, both
inside and outside Parliament, as a strong and well-respected
body. He suggested that the Commission might be consulted in the
course of the review about its perception of the Committee's success
in this respect.
Sir Gerald Kaufman suggested that both the Committee
and the review might be assisted in assessing the Commission's
overall effectiveness to date if it produced a checklist setting
out (a) the duties imposed by statute and the extent to which
the Commission had carried these out, and (b) the Commission's
discretionary powers, and the extent to which activities had been
undertaken under these.
Mr Beith noted that the H S Chapman Society was looking
at the Electoral Commission, and it was agreed that this body
might have a useful input to make to the review.
The Committee agreed the terms of reference for the
Review set out in the Appendix.
3. Proposal for an increase in the overall number
of Electoral Commissioners
The Committee further considered the request from
the Chairman of the Electoral Commission that an additional Commissioner
be appointed in anticipation of the transfer to the Commission
of the responsibilities of the Parliamentary Boundary Commissions.
There was general agreement that the Boundary Commissions had
discharged their responsibilities in an exemplary manner and that
it was essential that any new arrangements for reviewing parliamentary
constituency boundaries continued to command the same high level
of confidence both inside and outside the House.
Mr Raynsford reminded the Committee that statutory
provision for the transfers had already been made in the Political
Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and the Government
had said that these would not take place until the current general
reviews had been completed. He did not anticipate any of the transfers
taking place before April 2006 at the earliest; a decision on
the appointment of further Commissioners on this ground was not,
in his view, a pressing matter; no transfer was imminent.
The Lord Chancellor and Mr Raynsford agreed that
the Speaker (who is the statutory ex-officio chairman of
each of the Parliamentary Boundary Commissions) should be consulted
before decisions were made by the Government to make any of the
transfers, and the Lord Chancellor undertook to confirm this formally
if the Speaker so wished.
The Committee agreed that, for the present, there
should be no increase in the number of Commissioners in anticipation
of it assuming responsibility for the work of any of the Parliamentary
Boundary Commissions.
4. The Committee's Minutes
The Committee agreed that the Secretary should consult
the Speaker before publishing the minutes of any meeting if in
his opinion these included material that the Committee might consider
should properly remain confidential.
5. Report to the House
The Committee agreed a report to the House on its
general work over the period from 1 December 2003 to 30 November
2004.
This report has been published as the
Committee's First Report, 2005 (HC 255, Session 2004-05).
6. Next Meeting of the Committee
The Committee agreed to meet on Wednesday 2 February
at 3 p.m. in Speaker's House.
| 
