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Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr. Wills: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 5, in schedule 3, page 38, line 21, at beginning insert
(A1) In paragraph 1 of Schedule 7 to the 2000 Act (prohibition on accepting donations from impermissible donors), at the end of sub-sub-paragraph (7)(c) there is inserted , or a compliance officer appointed by the holder of a relevant elective office to act on his behalf..
Government amendments 29 and 30.
Mr. Wills: The House will recall that we discussed the purpose of the new clause at some length in Committee [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. Will the House please be quiet? This debate may be short and sweet, but it should be heard in silence.
Mr. Wills: The new clause will be of interest to Members because it is designed to make their lives a little easier. After the discussions about whether a compliance officer should be able to be appointed, we do not think the new clause will allow a holder of elective office to appoint a person to act as a compliance officer for the purpose of ensuring compliance with controls in the 2000 Act. There is nothing in that Act to prevent the appointment of an individual to help with compliance, but the clause ensures that such appointments can be made on a statutory basis.
We do not consider it appropriate to compel holders of elective office to appoint a compliance officer. That would be an unnecessary burden on Members, where there may have been no need in the first place. However, as I said in Committee, we recognise that some will wish to make such an appointment. The clause as drafted is permissive and allows a holder of elective office to notify the Electoral Commission that they have appointed a compliance officer.
We have set out the details of what is required in proposed paragraph 18. It is self-explanatory, so I will not deal with it in detail [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) will be even more relieved when I tell him that the clause adopts a
common-sense approach. It does not absolve office-holders from responsibility for compliance with their obligations under schedule 7 of PPERA. The question of who will be liable for a breach of the requirements for reporting on and handling donations will depend, as so often, on the facts of the case, but both the office-holder and the compliance officer may be subject to criminal sanction where there has been a failure to comply with their reporting requirements. The only exception
Three hours having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings on the programme motion, the proceedings were interrupted (Programme Order, this day).
The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Question necessary for the disposal of business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83E). Question put, that the Clause be added to the Bill.
New clause 13 added to the Bill.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP): I beg to move amendment 86, page 4, line 2, leave out from 3A to end and insert Nominated Commissioners.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 87, page 4, line 3, leave out from beginning to be and insert A nominated Commissioner shall.
Amendment 88, page 4, line 5, leave out (a nominated Commissioner).
Amendment 89, page 4, line 7, leave out from with to at in line 8 and insert 15 or more parliamentarians.
Amendment 90, page 4, line 9, leave out from appointment to whose in line 13.
Government amendments 31 and 32.
Amendment 91, page 4, line 19, at end insert
( ) In subsection (2) a parliamentarian means a Member of the European Parliament, a Member of the House of Commons, a Member of the Scottish Parliament, a Member of the Welsh Assembly or a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly..
Amendment 92, page 4, line 26, leave out subsection (7).
Amendment 93, in clause 6, page 4, line 46, leave out nine or ten and insert
one or two more than the number of nominated Commissioners multiplied by two..Pete Wishart: The amendment, which unites all the minority parties in this House, stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) and other colleagues across the House, and it should also include signatures from the Democratic Unionist party. We, the minority parties of this House, are in effect and in fact the Governments of the different legislatures across the United Kingdom. The amendment is self-explanatory. We want the Electoral Commission, in regulating across the United Kingdom, to recognise the new reality of the UK in 2009: the multi-party, multi-legislature UK that we currently experience. It is no good for it simply to reflect this Housethe old tired Westminster solution of the two main parties, with the Liberals acting as a sop for all the other minority parties. The amendments try to define that new system.
Let us take a cursory look around the United Kingdom. In this House, we have a majority Labour Government; in Scotland, we have a minority SNP Government and in Wales and Northern Ireland, we have coalitions of different parties. Different parties are in power throughout the United Kingdom. In fact, the only two parties involved in this debate who are not in power anywhere in the UK are the Conservative and Liberal parties, yet they will have a political commissioner nominee for the new commission. That is totally unacceptable to us.
If the Bill were just about this House, I would accept that what it proposed was the right way to proceed, given that we in the SNP are seven Members out of 646 Members of this House and all the minority parties combined amount to little more than 28 Members. If it were just about this House, having one political commissioner between the four parties would seem to be fair and reasonable, but the Electoral Commission has a remit beyond these green Benches. It serves all the legislatures, Parliaments and Assemblies throughout the United Kingdom, and the appointment of those political commissioners should adequately reflect and represent that.
Let us look at the situation in Scotland a little more carefully. We are described as a minority party in this House, and I accept that with seven Members out
of 646, that is the case. However, it is not the case in Scotland. We are the largest party in Scotland by seats and by votes. We are the Government of Scotland. If we look at the last two by-elections in Scotland, we find that the Labour party won oneI see that the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) is in his placeand the SNP won one. The Conservatives narrowly held on to their deposit in one seat but lost it in the other. The Liberals lost both their deposits. Those parties are quickly becoming minority parties in Scotland, yet they will have a nominated political commissioner, who will be involved in regulating electoral law for the Scottish Parliament, while the party of Government in Scotland will not have such an appointee.
That is clearly absurd, unfair and bizarre, and it is totally unacceptable to us. It is as if we were to say to the Labour party, Lets have politically nominated commissioners, but you cant have one. That would be totally unacceptable to the Minister and his colleagues. I would wager that it would be unacceptable to the Conservatives were they to be told, Were going to have politically nominated commissioners. The Labour party can have one, but sorry, Conservative party, you cant have one. I am sure that had the Labour and the Conservative parties been allowed to have politically nominated commissioners and the Liberal party had not, that would be totally unacceptable to the Liberals. They would be standing with me, full of indignation about what had been suggested. This debate is about fairness and what is right.
I want to dispel the notionwe debated this in Committee at some length; I remember discussing it with the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), who I am sure is paying attention to everything that I am sayingthat these politically nominated commissioners have nothing to do with the parties that are nominating them. What a lot of nonsense to suggest that they are somehow above politics and will be nominated by political parties only to give us the benefit of their experience and of their years in this HouseAye, right, as we say in Scotland. They are there as political nominees from those political parties, and they will have a role to play for those parties.
Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con): I am indeed paying close attention to every word that the hon. Gentleman is saying, many of which he said when we considered the matter in Committee. He is right to reiterate his argument now, but that does not make it any more correct than it was then. The fact is that if people of seniority, experience and wisdom are appointed to a body such as the Electoral Commission, they are not there to serve narrow party political interests, and to suggest that they are is to suggest that the entire political class is incapable of rising above party politics and acting for the common good and for the sake of democracy, which is what we really want.
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