There will probably be Divisions in the Chamber, so the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and will resume after 10 minutes.

Clause 14 : Limitation of pre-candidacy election expenses for certain general elections

We oppose the idea that Clause 14 should stand part of the Bill for exactly the same reasons that we put forward in a series of alternative amendments yesterday. I do not wish to repeat those arguments but simply note that the Electoral Commission briefing on whether Clause 14 should stand part says that,

“in principle it would be preferable to introduce a longer regulated period for candidate spending at the end of all Parliaments”.

The principle is “all Parliaments”. Currently, we have something that will work for only the last four months of a Parliament that goes its full five-year term. The commission suggests that we need something that will work for all Parliaments. For that reason, we oppose Clause 14 standing part of the Bill.

Perhaps I may speak to my Amendment 121, which is in the next group, but this would get it out of the way during this debate. I join the Liberal Democrat Benches in opposing this clause. To put it bluntly, it is a lot of old nonsense. It is extremely confusing. As I pointed out yesterday, if we have trouble over the rules in Westminster, there will also be a lot of problems over this proposal. A lot of constituency associations and parties will not even understand it. Now we have sanctions in the legislation, when we should be concentrating on producing simple legislation that people can easily understand.

My amendment, which some might recognise, is a direct lift of Clause 10 from the original Bill published for Second Reading in the House of Commons, which is why it is so beautifully written. My amendment was written by parliamentary counsel and is perfect in every way. I know that the Government cannot say that it will not work because it will. It is Clause 10 in its entirety without a word changed. On that basis, I hope that my noble friend will seriously consider it.

My amendment would bring to an end the ludicrous proposition that there should be a 55-month deregulated period during which some people would be able to spend an absolute fortune in their constituencies when others could spend very little. I want to speak at some length on this important matter. The amendment deals with what Martin Linton has called—I am sorry to have to refer to it in this way, but it is exactly what it is—the “Ashcroft loophole”. The noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, is a very clever, shrewd and able man. He has seen a loophole in the law, which he has fully exploited. The loophole has led to wholesale abuse of the system. Money talks in elections and it affects the results. In my view, what is going on in various parts of the country is an affront to democracy. It distorts election results.

It is not as if the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, denies this. In his book, Dirty Politics, Dirty Times—clearly I have not read it, because I do not read literature like that—he says:

“Of the 33 candidates who won seats from Labour or the Liberal Democrats, no fewer than 25 had received support from the fund that I had set up with”,

the noble Lord, Lord Steinberg, and the Midlands Industrial Council. There is the evidence of the effect of his money.

One person who has been most vocal in his objection to the use of the money of the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, in this way is Peter Bradley, who lost his seat, The Wrekin, in 2005. He submitted evidence to the House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee in March 2006. I shall read a small part of that evidence, as he carried out research into the impact of Ashcroft money in marginal constituencies in various parts of the United Kingdom. He said:

“My findings show how expenditure on local campaigning prior to the regulated short campaign can decisively influence election results in favour of the party with the greatest resources. They illustrate how a targeted funding strategy was a key if not the determining factor in the results in a large number of marginal seats which changed hands at the 2005 general election ... My sample is drawn from those 93 constituencies in which, according to the Electoral Commission’s records, the local Conservative Association benefited from donations from a consortium which comprised Lord Ashcroft’s Bearwood Corporate Services Ltd, Lord Leonard Steinberg and an organisation known as the Midlands Industrial Council with which Mr Robert Edmiston is associated. The consortium had earlier made public its intention to target funding on what it considered to be key battleground seats. I have sought to establish whether its strategy proved effective and, if so, what conclusions should be drawn ... The consortium’s clear premise was that in marginal seats the party with the most money to spend on campaigning ought to have a decisive advantage at elections and its strategy was designed to ensure that they did ... 24 of the 36 Conservative gains had been targeted by the three donors, including 23 of 31 from Labour and one of five from the Liberal Democrats ... The Conservatives exceeded the national swing in 20 of those 24 gains ... The Wrekin: the Conservative candidate was able to outspend me”—

that is, Mr Bradley—

“by a factor of 11 to 1 and secured a swing of 5.4%. That meant that on a regular basis over a protracted period before the short campaign, he was able to take out paid for advertorials in a series of weekly local papers with a wide local readership. Of perhaps greater significance, at a time when I could afford to print just one constituency-wide newsletter which my local party activists and volunteers struggled to hand-deliver to as much of a large constituency as they could reach, my opponent was able to produce campaign material on almost a weekly basis which was frequently posted to every household in the constituency ... In many of the sample seats hard cash helped to compensate for and mask the lack of local political organisation or active support on which candidates and parties ought, in my view, to rely if they are to be genuinely engaged with and accountable to the communities they seek to represent”.

The answer, according to Mr Bradley, following his long paper and his submission to the committee,

“is to cap annual expenditure on campaigning throughout the cycle. Local parties would be free to raise funds in excess of the cap and either bank them or pass them on to their national party. But they would not be able to spend above the annual limit established for any given constituency on any activity associated with party political campaigning”.

I agree with every single word of that, as do most Labour and Liberal Members of Parliament, who in many areas have been victims of this kind of campaigning based wholly on the largest pocket being able to buy the seat.

In response to these concerns, the Government originally said in their White Paper that they would consider returning to the principle in the regulations on candidate spending that existed before 2000, whereby the purpose for which expenditure was used would determine whether it counted against the spending limits. That is why in the original Bill they tabled Clause 10, which is my amendment. My amendment would need to be accompanied by a further amendment, setting out a different approach to the control of expenditure during the whole of a Parliament, which was the substance of the amendment moved yesterday from the Liberal Democrat Benches.

Furthermore, I would argue that the appointment of a prospective candidate at whatever point during the period of a Parliament indicates the commencement of a campaign. Some form of further control should exist from that date onwards; during that period, there should be a clear indication of expenditure, defined in regulation to describe the maximum permissible cost of employing staff for the purpose of promoting candidates, the use of publicity and printing and the publishing costs of literature connected with the promotion of candidates for Parliament. In other words, we need ceilings on expenditure.

These proposals bring into question the running sore of the communications allowance, which I have always opposed personally. In my day, an MP was known from the effort that they made and not from the well spun material circulated to his or her constituents. I am sympathetic to proposals for its abolition. However, I had a long conversation the other day with Martin Linton, to whom I have referred on previous occasions and who knows a lot about these matters. He points to a recent development in the newspaper industry, whereby the fact that the local paper has disappeared makes it very difficult in some seats to get publicity. Multimedia, the internet, television and all kinds of new forms of media penetrating the market have left local newspapers in many areas running at a loss and they are closing down. He maintains that in parts of the country you need some kind of additional money to ensure that the work of Members of Parliament is adequately brought before their constituents for consideration.

I support what Angus Maude said in Hansard on 6 June 2008. He said that it would be,

“an atrocious abuse of power for the Government to force through restrictions on what parliamentary candidates can spend from money they have raised privately, while sitting MPs can spend ever-more taxpayers’ money on promoting themselves”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/6/08; col. 694.]

That is not a principle; it is a case. Equally, we have to take into account the fact that in some parts of the country it is very difficult to secure publicity, so there has to be some residual allowance. I believe that the current allowance is far too much; it is excessive and enables some Members of Parliament to do very little work and yet promote themselves through a lot of publicity in these leaflets.

In my amendment, which I am using this debate on the clause to discuss, I am saying that we should review the allowance system. We should tighten up on the regime and return to the principle of the trigger, which worked perfectly well in the old days when I was in the House of Commons. It was only when people started abusing the trigger with these trunks full of cash, which they could pour on individual marginal seats, that it all went wrong. We should concentrate on controlling that and go back to the principle of the trigger, which worked perfectly well.

I do not think that we can allow this to go unresponded. First, on a point of order, I think that the noble Lord in referring to Angus Maude meant Francis Maude. But I am concerned with his obsession with the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, and I think that treatment needs to be given.

In his dialogue, the noble Lord shot his own fox to a certain extent. First, he implied that the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, was responsible for funding the campaign entirely, then he referred to the fact that he did it in consortium. I should like to add some factual evidence to that: in fact, it was a match funding plan with central office. When the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, raised money, central office raised money. So a very broad donor base applied.

The noble Lord said that the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, had exposed a loophole. I do not think that I need to answer to the Labour Party about exposing loopholes in election funding—and I am sure that we are ad idem that there are far bigger loopholes than this one that need closing.

Finally, the great merit of the money of the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, and others—I stress “others”—is that it counters the vast amount of union money going into these target seats, union activity in the form of individuals canvassing and leafleting and the substantial advantage that a sitting MP has with the expenses that are available to him to fight the seat. The obsession falls down completely because, unless my understanding is wrong, the Labour Party won the previous election with a very substantial majority.

I spoke on this issue briefly yesterday. I am undecided about what is in the legislation. I am not certain that it resolves the problem. I do not understand the 55 months, as most elections are over in 48 months. Therefore, that is a nonsense. That is what worries me. I want to know what happens next and I will try to find that out. However, to go back, the 2000 Act provided a loophole for expenditure, which was opposed at that time by the Conservative Front Bench. I say with great respect to my noble friend, as I do not want to embarrass him in any way, that at the very end of a very long session on the 2000 Bill he said that if it was at all possible he would come back to the points that had been made. It was not his fault that it was not possible to do so. Had that been possible, we might not be in this position today. Given the support of the Conservative Front Bench and the comments made at that time by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who was opposed to the relevant measures in the 2000 Bill, as I was, we could have made changes at that time. Unfortunately, that was not to be, which was no one’s fault.

Irrespective of whether you call it the Ashcroft loophole or any other loophole, there is a loophole that allows excessive expenditure prior to an election because of the related short campaign that the 2000 Act introduced. I am not interested in Ashcroft per se, or even how that money was raised; I am interested in the principle. A serious principle is involved. The 2000 Act removed a level playing field, which is what we ought to seek in any legislation. I ran the Hove by-election at the previous general election, which we won with a two-figure margin. In the year prior to that election, the Tory candidate spent £90,000 of his own money on posters, which were displayed all over the constituency. He obviously sent out the wrong message because he did not win, but it was wrong that he was able to spend that sum of money when neither our own, new candidate nor his party had those resources. We should try to correct such an imbalance. I suggest that the Bill does not do so. I shall need a lot of persuading to convince me that it does. I have talked to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, because I am not absolutely certain that the measure that he produced yesterday is the answer. I need a clear explanation of the way forward.

I have always been in favour of a trigger. As a party official for 24 years, I used the trigger and never had a problem. I think that there were two court cases in the whole time that the trigger existed. One of them occurred in 2000 and I believe that it led to the changes being introduced at the last minute in the 2000 Bill. Prior to that, to my knowledge, there had been only one case in 30 years. If something is working as well as that, why does it need to be changed? It meant that huge amounts of money could not be spent in an election.

I cannot talk about what things are like today but, in my time, if we found someone starting up an election campaign by promoting themselves as a candidate, whether for the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats or whatever, the parties would communicate with each other. Conservative Central Office would call me and say, “Joyce, someone has just started a campaign as a Labour candidate”. I would ring the person and say, “Withdraw instantly. You have started a campaign and you must not do that”. That worked effectively, which is why I have a problem with this. I am not even certain that the trigger that was put into the Bill and then removed represents the right wording to get us back to where we were. There will have to be a long debate and discussion, and a lot more thought will have to be given to the issue, before we can come to a conclusion.

I want to make one other point in relation to Clause 14. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, read out the first sentence of the Electoral Commission’s paper covering regulated periods and so on. However, the commission goes on to say:

“We therefore welcome the replacement of these proposals with the current Clause 14”.

I do not say that I agree with it, but it is important to put on the record that the Electoral Commission has agreed with Clause 14 rather than, as has been implied—I say this with great respect—that it does not. This is something to which we must come back in great detail when we reach the Report stage.

I apologise for missing the first part of this debate, but I understand very well what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, wants in his amendment. I regret that I have not so far been able to take part in the Committee stage due to commitments on the Marine and Coastal Access Bill and my family. There may well be people here who are quite pleased that I have not been able to take part previously, but we are now coming to areas that I am really interested in. Since this is the first time that I have spoken in Committee, I declare my interests as a lifelong election campaigner on behalf of the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats, as an elected local councillor in Lancashire and as a declared agent in five county council elections now taking place—or at least I hope so, if all the nomination papers have gone in properly, which was something that I was not able to do myself because I have been here.

I want to follow up on what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said by reporting to the Committee what is happening in relation to the next general election in the Pendle constituency, where I live. In doing so, I am not criticising the Conservatives for taking advantage of the existing law. I criticise the law as it stands because it allows them to do it. Equally, it is generally believed that the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, is behind everything. I have no detailed knowledge beyond the report that states that that is thought to be the case in one way or the other, and certainly our Member of Parliament, Mr Gordon Prentice, takes a close interest in the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, and his activities. As I say, I do not particularly want to criticise the Conservatives; I want merely to report what is happening, because it seems to go beyond what is reasonable if we are looking for a level playing field. Level playing fields may be hard to find in our hilly area, but nevertheless they ought to be there for electoral purposes.

Since the Conservatives adopted a new candidate around 18 months ago, every month the good people of Pendle have been receiving a regular tabloid-sized leaflet made up sometimes of four pages and sometimes of eight. It is delivered by Royal Mail, presumably because there are no local deliverers because nowadays political parties are short of such helpers. As I say, pretty well every month for the past 18 months, everyone has received through the Royal Mail a full-colour four or eight page tabloid leaflet, sometimes promoting Mr Cameron and the Conservative Party nationally, but usually promoting Mr Stephenson, the new Conservative candidate, and his views and activities locally.

Far be it from me to object to political parties issuing leaflets telling people what they are doing and how they are doing it, but the scale of what is happening, which is clearly being targeted at the next general election, is extraordinary by any standards that I have known. It is not just the monthly newspaper-style leaflets; there are also targeted mailings to all sorts of people in the constituency, which are again coloured leaflets and letters from the Conservative candidate posted through the Royal Mail. Lots of other activity is going on; leaflets are being genuinely delivered by local people, but the leaflet delivery system for some of them is paid for—people are being paid to deliver the leaflet, rather than just being party workers.

Again, I do not complain about any of that in the normal course of events. I point out that it is being targeted very specifically at the election of a particular person at the next parliamentary election at a date that could still be 12 months away. If it is, it will have been two and a half years for which a level of activity normally associated with the four or five weeks, or even less, of an election campaign will have been sustained. It remains to be seen what effect that will have had on how people vote when the votes are finally cast and counted, but if we are looking for a level playing field, we certainly have not got one.

How much all that is costing I do not know. I did a rule-of-thumb calculation that the amount of money that appears to be being pumped into the local Conservative Party compared with what it had been spending previously within living memory, if this period lasts for two and a half years, might well be of the order of a quarter of a million pounds. That is my guess. I have no evidence for that; it is just based on what I know things cost. After costing the activity that is taking place—the use of central telephone polling organisations and everything else—that is my guess at the real value of what is being done.

Well, the rest of us have to take account of what is happening and try to do our best in the face of it. Again, I am not whingeing or complaining. If our opponents or anyone else’s are capable of intensive political activity, that is entirely legitimate and desirable, but it should be based on local resources and people power, not on a party’s ability to pump in large amounts of money to one constituency to try to win it. I am not suggesting that it is only the Conservatives who are doing that; I am suggesting that the system that allows it to happen is wrong.

I am sure that the noble Lord will confirm that, when it is suggested that that is being done in response to trade union effort, there is no great organised trade union effort in certain constituencies that are under attack in this way. Liberal candidates are under attack, but the relationship between the Liberals and the trade unions is not what it is between the Labour Party and trade unions, so it is unreasonable to suggest that Liberals are acting in that way.

That is absolutely true. I should also report that in the case of Pendle—I must be careful what I say; I do not want to breach the protocols of the relationship between this House and the House of Commons—our MP, Gordon Prentice, does not appear to have lots of rich friends in any quarter who are pumping a lot of money into what he is doing. He may have lots of friends, but they are not rich friends, as far as one can tell. They are certainly not funding his campaigns. The only activities that he appears to be undertaking are funded through the parliamentary allowance—issuing the Member’s report as MPs are allowed to do. That seems to me personally to be an abuse of public money but, again, that is not a party-political issue. In my view the system should not allow it, but it does. The scale of what he can do bears no relationship whatever to the scale of what the Conservatives are able to do and certainly no relationship to the scale of what we are able to do from our purely local resources.

In considering this, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that some of us have been involved in by-elections where the Liberal Democrats tend to pride themselves on fighting vigorous and extremely well resourced campaigns, which are sometimes successful in exploiting a situation and are sometimes—as in Crewe and Nantwich—staggeringly unsuccessful. The resources that are deployed and co-ordinated nationally by the Liberal Democrats are immense. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, will have heard the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, about local resources. Perhaps they will be followed in future by-elections.

Does the noble Lord not understand the huge difference in the short period when a parliamentary by-election is taking place and all parties pump in enormous resources? In the past, when expense limits were very restricted, all parties knew how to avoid the limits. Let us be frank about that. All parties did it in a legitimate and legal, but nevertheless slightly dodgy, way. The fact that parliamentary by-election expense limits have been increased so substantially is therefore a good thing. There is all the difference in the world between a party—or two or three parties—going all-out during the four, six or eight weeks of a parliamentary by-election campaign and that level of spending being sustained over a number of years.

I hear what the noble Lord says in defence. That leads me to my second point about the problem, which concerns the extent of the allowances, as my noble friend Lord Marland has mentioned. Allowances are available to an incumbent Member of Parliament not directly for campaigning purposes. The noble Lord was clear in saying that he did not accept the communications allowance. From our side, David Cameron has also it made very clear that we will remove it. There is a scale of allowances for a kind of soft campaigning. I recall in 1997, when I served in the other place, staff allowances were around £30,000 per year; they are now £90,000 per year. There are additional staff and other cost allowances of £37,000 per year. In addition, there is a communications allowance of £10,000 per year.

In many ways, what we have to debate is the extent to which there ought to be a built-in bias in our system. The noble Baroness, Lady Gould, made absolutely the right point: we ought to seek a level playing field. My argument is that, when someone is contesting a seat with an incumbent, there is not a level playing field in the resources or opportunities that are available.

Let us take, for instance, a constituency where a Conservative Member of Parliament has £90,000 in allowances and a £10,000 communications allowance, the Labour candidate has a few thousand pounds and the Liberal Democrat candidate has even less. What will happen in those seats? Is that a level playing field? If the noble Lord is considering level playing fields, how will we make up this money? How can we have a level playing field while there is that inequality?

That is the point that I am making. There needs to be some additional support, which many parties receive through their central funding. The Labour Party receives it very substantially, as I outlined yesterday at col. 190, when funds come from the trade unions into local associations where they are contesting particular key marginal seats.

The noble Lord seems to be saying that the trade unions should give the Labour Party more money. He is also arguing that the state should give the Labour Party more money. Is that what he is actually arguing?

I am not arguing that; I am simply stating the facts. I shall come to the argument in a minute. The facts are simply that at the moment significant resources are going into particular seats from particular parties. The notion being presented is that somehow it is an outrage that people are targeting. I cannot believe that any political operation worthy of its name does not target its resources on the seats that it needs to win. That is what people have done since time immemorial. I cannot see what the issue is there.

I do not remember that when I was a candidate in Workington we targeted with vast sums of money on this scale. I asked a friend in the Pendle constituency to send me some of these documents. I have here the front pages of a publication that comes out monthly, Pendle Matters. The headlines include, “Tackling the credit crunch”, “Freeze council tax for two years” and “Labour’s war on the motorist”. Every month this material that I have here is circulating like a—

The noble Lord is out of order.

Every month material such as that in front of me is being circulated in the constituency. Does the noble Lord really believe that in those conditions there is a level playing field?

I am saying that there is a candidate who is, yes, getting some resources to contest a system that is weighted in favour of the incumbent. That is the point that I am making. I have been a Member of Parliament and many people in this Room have been parliamentary candidates. We know very well that the incumbent Member of Parliament gets many advantages in addition to the allowances. When you are the Member of Parliament you can go to places, you can be invited to factories, schools and hospitals, you have the opportunity through your advice surgery to meet the electorate and to serve them well, you have the opportunity to answer the 50 to 60 letters that you get per day and take up those cases, and you can use the media. Huge resources are deployed in that direction. I simply question the whole issue of what delivers fair elections. I noted the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that the deepest pocket buys the seat. That is a very dangerous way of referring to the electorate.

I offer this view. It is not my noble friend Lord Ashcroft who will win the election, brilliant though he is as a strategist; it is Gordon Brown’s staggering mismanagement of the economy that will actually cost the Labour Government the next election when it is called. That is the point that we need to bear in mind. The point was made previously that people spent large sums of money, such as the £90,000 which was spent on the posters to which the noble Baroness referred but which failed to win the election. The electorate have made up their mind, although their mind is influenced. The quality of the organisation and the communication is very important for getting out the vote in an election, but the electorate can see through these things.

The noble Lord said that he agreed with my comment about having a level playing field. Does he therefore think that it is right—I get the impression that he is saying that it is perfectly okay—for someone to spend £90,000 on an election and for that not to be recorded as an election expense? Is that what the noble Lord is saying?

The noble Baroness is very experienced. I do not mean to trespass on or demean her point. I was going to come to what she said about triggering, which is a key point. I remember from the campaigns in which I have been involved at local and national level that the way in which people got around the triggering was simply by becoming the editor of the local newsletter. Rather than having their names presented on the newsletters—

That is one of the nonsense arguments that I have heard against triggering over a number of years. The candidate may well have become the editor of the newsletter, but they did not put under it, “I am your candidate”. Those are the important words. It was an aim, but not one that was identified at that point with the candidature.

But the noble Baroness knows that, if a leaflet goes out on a regular basis, with a picture on it of the person who happens to be in line to be the candidate, and it says that that person is the spokesman for one particular area, that is all within the triggering rules as they once applied. The electorate are supposed to say at that point, “Well, of course we didn’t actually think that that person was running for election because they never said beneath their name that they were the candidate”. I just do not see that.

What I am struggling for is that from our point of view we are saying that we are open to this issue. We have accepted the issue that has come forward about the 55 months and the attempt to limit the amount spent in the pre-election period and we welcome the point made very clearly that there would be a commitment that the use of the communications allowance by incumbent members during that pre-election period would similarly be restricted and curtailed. That is making progress in the right direction, but I do not think that the wording of the noble Lord’s amendment or the stand clause debate that we are having takes us one step in the direction that I think in time we will all have to move.

This has been a fascinating debate. Who said that the House of Lords was not a political House? I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, in particular for moving so briefly that this clause should not stand part. Of course, he did not repeat the arguments that he used yesterday, but I know where he is coming from on this issue. Some impressive speeches and powerful points have been made.

It is a long-standing and well supported principle that the amount of money that can be spent in pursuit of election should be limited. We must seek to achieve effective regulation of expenditure without introducing intolerable levels of uncertainty for those who are expected to abide by the regulations. We must also ensure at all times that the legislation in this area is not allowed to become a partisan tool. Any changes should command a reasonably broad consensus. As the Committee has heard on countless occasions, this has been an overriding objective for the Government throughout the passage of this Bill.

The current candidate spending limit ensures that there can be no uncertainty for those standing for election as, in practice, it applies only from the date of dissolution of Parliament, or the date of a person’s formal declaration as a candidate if that comes later, to the date of the election itself. After dissolution, there is certainty that an election will be taking place shortly and there is certainty as to what is and is not to be regarded as an election expense. However, expenditure outside of this short period is effectively unregulated. As a result, unregulated campaigning by candidates can and does occur to a significant extent. I think that there is agreement on all sides of the Committee, as there was in the other place, that this is a real problem which needs to be looked at.

As my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours gently reminded me, when the Bill was first introduced in the other place it included proposals to return to a form of the system that existed before the passage of the 2000 Act. My noble friend Lady Gould reminded us of this, too. It is known informally as “triggering”. Under those proposals, an individual’s spending limit would not have begun at any fixed point in time but rather would have been triggered when an expense was used for the purposes of election. Opposition parties and the Electoral Commission expressed a number of concerns about those proposals, chiefly centring on the potential for creating greater uncertainty for candidates.

It soon became clear that the proposals did not command widespread support. By way of example, the right honourable Member, Mr Maude, said:

“The proposal to return to triggering was universally condemned as a return to an unworkable, unwieldy rule that had long outlived its usefulness”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/2/09; col. 1222.]

That was his opinion.

Where is that quote from?

That was from Commons Report; I can give my noble friend the date in due course.

Is not the point that he made those comments after the abuse by the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, had begun, so he said that with the experience of the substantial amounts of money that can go to individual constituencies?

I am not going to comment on his state of mind at the time; I am trying to make the point that there was not widespread support for what was in the government Bill in the first place. By the way, the date was 9 February 2009.

I now quote from the shadow Secretary of State for Justice on the Liberal Democrat Benches, who, in the same debate, said:

“The mechanism now being proposed in place of triggering is certainly better than triggering, which never really worked. It simply resulted in a lot of angry letters being exchanged between agents, with one accusing another of having started election expenses and then getting a letter back”.

There was then an interruption, after which the honourable Member, Mr Howarth, continued:

“The hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) says that it did work. It worked in one sense, in that it represented a kind of background threat, but people who were brazen just got away with it anyway”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/2/09; cols. 1225-26.]

I do not use those quotations to say that I agree with them; I mention them because they were said in another place about this matter. In those circumstances, it is hardly surprising, given that the Government are looking for consensus, that they did not find it on returning to some sort of triggering in the Bill. Both major opposition parties’ Front Benches clearly disagreed with triggering.

But does my noble friend not accept that, under the new arrangements, it will be possible for someone to describe themselves as the candidate for Parliament for a particular party within a month of a general election and then spend £100,000 per annum in that constituency with a view to winning the seat at the next general election for the first 55 months or up to the point of dissolution, if that comes earlier? It is absolutely outrageous for a Labour Government to allow that to happen.

All that I can say is that we are looking for consensus in this field, having recognised that there is a considerable problem that Parliament must deal with at some stage.

But this consensus is, I presume, arrived at between Mr Jack Straw and the opposition spokesmen in the House of Commons. Members of Parliament, including Labour Back-Benchers, have not approved the principle.

I have to say that strictly speaking it was approved at Report in another place and I have to go on that.

It soon became clear that our proposals did not command widespread support—that is putting it mildly. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State therefore responded to the questions and concerns raised and brought forward amendments to the Bill at Report in the other place. Those amendments, which have become Clause 14, were made in another place without a Division. Clearly there is no broad consensus here today about those provisions.

Clause 14 takes a fresh approach to the problem of unregulated candidate spending before dissolution. It seeks to recognise certainty where it exists and, where possible, to provide for more effective regulation of candidate spending without raising uncertainty for those campaigning.

It is not right that pre-election spending at local level that is targeted at promoting the election of a candidate should be regulated only after the point when a person formally becomes a candidate under the law. However, in recognition of the very serious concerns about certainty and fairness relating to our original proposal, we think that the better approach is to apply this principle during a closely defined period.

Under our parliamentary system, the one thing that we know with certainty is the maximum possible length of a Parliament, which is set at 60 months. Clause 14 will therefore introduce a clear and certain start point for regulating candidate expenses, which is counted forwards from the date when a Parliament is first appointed to meet. It will introduce an additional limit on “pre-candidacy” election expenses, which begins at that clear start point and ends on the date of dissolution or the date, if later, when a person is formally declared to be a candidate. As previously mentioned, that is when one becomes formally regarded as a candidate under the 1983 Act, as amended by PPERA 2000. At that point, the existing controls on candidate spending will take effect, with the result that the existing limit will come into play at the same time and in the same way as it would under the present system.

We have considered carefully when to fix the start point for the new limit. We are clear that expenses should be regulated only when it is known with certainty that a general election is reasonably imminent. We have therefore specified that the pre-candidacy limit should apply from the point after 55 months of a Parliament has elapsed. When a Parliament reaches its final months, many prospective candidates will begin campaigning some time in advance of the dissolution. After 55 months, there can be little doubt that these are genuinely election expenses and, in those circumstances, we believe that such expenses can and should be regulated.

The proposed new limit would not apply for shorter Parliaments. In those cases, we consider that the uncertainty about whether and when an election might take place makes specifying a longer regulated period more difficult. It should be noted that the Electoral Commission supports the proposals in Clause 14. It did not support an amendment tabled in the other place that sought to shift the start point to 50 months. The commission considered that this would create,

“considerable uncertainty for candidates and agents”.

We need to consider that important point. The new limit will regulate the same types of expenditure as the existing limit. The new limit will regulate all spending on these matters that is used,

“for the purposes of the candidate’s election”,

mirroring how the existing limit applies.

It will not be possible for individuals to avoid the limit by stockpiling expenditure. The new limit will regulate all expenditure that is used during the regulated period, even where that expenditure is incurred beforehand. This mirrors how the existing limit treats expenditure. However, let me be clear that the new limit will not have retrospective effect, in that it will not apply to any expenses that are incurred before commencement of the clause and then used at a time when the new limit applies. That is to prevent the clause from applying to expenses that may already have been incurred before it became known by the person who incurred them that the new pre-candidacy limit was to be brought into existence.

The level of the spending limit itself will vary from constituency to constituency, according to the number of electors and the density of population. This, too, mirrors the approach taken to calculating the existing spending limit. For a typical constituency, the new limit will amount to around £30,000. Where a Parliament runs for more than 55 months but is dissolved before the statutory maximum length, the level of the spending limit will be reduced accordingly. This pro-rating is staggered to take account of fixed costs that may be involved in campaigning.

The 55-month point for the present Parliament is 11 December 2009. However, in the interests of clarity and simplicity, should the new limit be needed for the current Parliament, it would only begin to regulate expenses used after 1 January 2010. To be clear, expenses incurred before this date but used after it will be caught. It is only expenses that are incurred and used beforehand that will not be.

Clause 14, if carried, will be commenced by order following Royal Assent. It is the Government’s intention that the date of commencement will depend on the timetabling of the debate in the other place to consider the appropriate use of parliamentary allowances during the longer regulated period. That is a matter for the other place.

I freely acknowledge that this clause does not represent a perfect solution to the problem of unregulated pre-dissolution candidate expenditure. It will not alter the present arrangements in the case of shorter Parliaments and, sadly, it has not proved possible to find a solution for such circumstances that all parties can support. But we believe that it represents an advance over the current position and, crucially, the measure commands broad support among the parties in another place.

My noble friend Lady Gould asked what is to happen next. My reply is that the 55-month provision will regulate candidate spending for a longer period in Parliaments that run either to or close to full term. That is an improvement, however minor she and other noble Lords may consider, on the status quo. If we can secure cross-party agreement to candidate spending restrictions which apply in more elections and which do not imply excessive uncertainty, we will look to bring measures forward. However, in 2005-06, the Government’s proposal for a standard four-month regulated period was rejected, as was triggering. That is why we now propose in Clause 14 a system that counts forward from the last general election.

I have one last point to make. The communications allowance has been brought up on a number of occasions during the debate. I remind the Committee that parliamentary allowances, including of course the House of Commons communications allowance, exist to enable Members of the other place to fulfil their parliamentary duties. The proposals for the House of Commons communications allowance came not from Her Majesty’s Government but from the Members Estimate Committee and the House of Commons Commission. Any decisions in relation to that allowance are for the other place to take collectively. I would expect the Members Estimate Committee to consider whether any changes to the rules on the use of allowances might be appropriate as a result of the changes made by this Bill.

That is the response that I make, as best I can, to the proposition put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard.

As we come to a close on this, can my noble friend confirm that we have not dealt with the problem of multimillionaires spending vast sums of money in marginal seats with a view to influencing the results of general elections? After 12 years of a Labour Government, would he confirm that?

I must confirm that we have not dealt with it entirely; that is true. But I make again the point that I made a moment ago: the position that we suggest in Clause 14 is better, however marginally in my noble friend’s view, than the status quo in that there is a period after 55 months when spending is regulated in each constituency.

I thank the Minister for his last remark, in which he accepted that Clause 14 does not deal fundamentally with the problem. I appreciate that he has said that the solution is imperfect, but I believe that it could be improved. I do not particularly wish to dwell on Clause 14, but I must make some remarks in relation to Amendment 121.

There is an almost universal consensus about the problem represented by the absence of the approach first introduced in the 1883 legislation of having a level playing field between constituencies for general elections. We recognise the problem. My arguments on Clause 14 and Amendment 121 reflect how we can best address it. Clause 14 does not deal with the problem properly. While the Minister suggests that it is based on the principle that we know the maximum length of a Parliament, it is fundamentally wrong because we cannot ever know the duration of a Parliament. However, we know the starting point of a Parliament, which is why, if it is logical to have a regulated period more than the immediate period between dissolution and polling day, the regulated period should be from day one of the general election campaign; that is, the day after polling day in the previous general election.

The Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, and I have quoted from the Electoral Commission’s advice in relation to the relative merits and demerits of Clause 14 and Amendment 121. To be clear about what we are saying, the commission says that Clause 14 is not a ringing endorsement but that the proposals in Clause 14 are clearer and simpler than the triggering proposals. In other ways, it comes to the Minister’s defence in saying that the triggering does not work and that Clause 14 may be better. But I would again pray the commission in aid for my argument where it insists that a longer regulated period is required at the end of all Parliaments. If that applies to all Parliaments, it must apply from day one after the previous general election.

If we talk about trying to do something over a four-month period, or after 24, 36, 48 or 51 months, where would we have been, for example, in 1974? My noble friend was elected in February but sadly not re-elected in October.

It was a scandal!

Under any of these proposed systems, what limit would have made any difference in the circumstances of 1974? That is why it is fundamentally right that there should be a control period over the length of the Parliament. I have thought long and hard about Amendment 121 and whether it might be practical to bring back the trigger, having raised concerns in 2000 about what we were doing. In effect, a complete coach and horses has been driven through the principles of the 1883 legislation that you should not be able to buy an individual constituency.

Some of my reservations arise from the fact that I do not have quite the same confidence in the mechanism as the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, does. She referred to a relatively recent court case in which she said that perhaps it worked. She may have been referring to the case in Newark after the 2001 general election. My view is that that legal action showed how it did not really work. After the 1997 election, it was shown that it did not work. As agents, a number of us have significant experience that there were more problems perhaps with the trigger mechanism than the noble Baroness suggested—for example, how you deemed yourself to be the editor, the prospective candidate, the candidate, et cetera. When I was organising elections and the noble Baroness was organising them on behalf of the Labour Party, I really wish that I had known that all I had to do to get a Labour candidate out of the race was to phone her at her headquarters and tell her that the election expenses—

It was the absolute reverse. If the noble Lord had told me that that was the situation, I would have made sure that the candidate stayed in the race. If I had not been told, the candidate might have been excluded from the race.

Perhaps. I should confess that my role in relation to quite a number of controversies was simply to try to restrain the enthusiasm of those people who wished to go to the lawyers at every opportunity. I know that a number of them did. I do not say that with disrespect to any noble Lords who are in the legal profession. But in my experience they did very well on a number of occasions from researching cases to suggest that someone had triggered their expenses and then coming to the conclusion that nothing could be done about it. It was an imperfect mechanism.

In all honesty, if I thought—again, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, expressed the problem elegantly—that bringing back the trigger would deal with that problem in the fundamental way that was suggested, I would think more favourably of it. But I came to the conclusion that it did not, and not just because nine years on it is hard to reintroduce. The culture of campaigning and what people do have changed so much that in practical terms it would be very difficult to bring it back. Other changes in the 2000 legislation would make bringing back the trigger impossible, which is why the Minister referred to how the Front Benches in another place decided after due consideration that it could not be done. Fundamentally, the problem is that the trigger mechanism relates only to spending by an individual candidate, but not by a party promoting the cause of the party. Any system to address this must address the costs of promoting the party in a particular area, as well as promoting the candidate.

The problem was well described by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, but I commend to those who are particularly concerned about it a book that explains it very well. It was referred to previously: Dirty Politics, Dirty Times. I have read it. Noble Lords may not want to add to the royalties of the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, and I am not sure that he needs them anyway. I have a policy of always getting such books from the House of Lords Library, rather than contributing to the royalties of someone to whom I do not, perhaps, want to contribute. I got that book out and studied it in some detail. It explains carefully and clearly how effectively a complete coach and horses has been driven through the original legislation that was brought about to end the corruption of the 19th century when people were allowed to buy individual constituencies.

You also see, from the detail, how the trigger would not deal with it because much of the expenditure in key seats, described in the book, promotes the party, rather than the candidate. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, will confirm that many of our discussions with advising agents over the years would be to the effect that, even with the trigger, you could promote the party but not the candidate. Now there is effectively no limit, because national limits are so high that you can promote the party at great expense. Much of the campaigning done in the marginal seats by all parties promotes the party, perhaps in the form of such things as letters from a party leader. The candidate and constituency may not be named, but the case is put to vote for a particular party or, sometimes, against another one.

I give an example from one constituency. The issue is of such importance that we must come back to it. The trigger is not right and Clause 14 is not right. In Teignbridge at the last general election, the sitting Liberal Democrat MP was limited in promoting himself by the degree to which he could say, “Vote for me again, Richard Younger-Ross, your hard-working local Liberal Democrat MP”. However, effectively, there was no limit on the expenditure on letters from Michael Howard saying, “Vote for the Conservative Party”. The MP’s wife received four letters from Michael Howard during the general election campaign, urging her, in effect, to make her husband redundant by voting Conservative instead. Since there was no limit on national expenditure, there was a completely uneven playing field.

If the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, were to talk again to Peter Bradley and discuss whether the trigger really would have helped him, he should say that bringing back the trigger in the way that has been suggested would have made it harder for him. He would probably have been even more limited in saying, “Vote for me, I’m a good bloke”, but there would have been no limit on the Conservative Party saying, “Do not vote Labour for these reasons; vote for the Conservative Party instead”. We have a fundamental problem and we do not have the right solution to it. Amendment 121 and bringing back the trigger would not be the right approach. For that reason, we oppose Clause 14 standing part of the Bill. We will, of course, abandon it at this point, but we give due notice that we must look properly at the issue and come back to it at a later stage.

I oppose allowing Clause 17 to stand part of the Bill. Clause 17 is a very unusual clause. It was new Clause 23 in the other place and is commonly referred to as the carpetbaggers’ charter for reasons that I will explain. I, like several other Members whom I see here, have had experience of how the other place manages its business. Without intruding on private grief, I must point out that the new clause came into the Bill in a most extraordinary way. On 2 March, at Report stage in the other place, Dr Julian Lewis, Conservative MP for New Forest East, said:

“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I should be most grateful if there were an opportunity to put new clause 23 to a vote on the grounds that it is consistent with decisions previously taken by the House about security of hon. Members’ home addresses. [Interruption.]”.

Sylvia Heal, Madam Deputy Speaker, said:

“Order. In view of the comments that the hon. Gentleman has made, I have decided that in the circumstances he has outlined, I will select new clause 23 for a separate decision.”—[Official Report, Commons, 2/3/09; col. 678.]

The vital bit that is omitted from that report, which I am sure is entirely accurate, is that no one actually moved the new clause. Yet there was a Division and, later in the evening, when a number of points of order were raised, Mr Gordon Prentice, among others, pointed out that he had been unable to put his Amendments 84 and 85, despite the fact that they had had the support of 216 Members of Parliament. Those amendments also should have been put. Not only was this new clause never moved or discussed, but it was given precedence over a number of amendments in other groups. It was not even included in the group that had been discussed. That is an extraordinary situation. When I was in a previous role as shadow Leader of the House for a number of years, I do not think—perhaps the Minister can advise us—that there was ever a precedent for anything being put to the House without being moved. That already raises a major question in my mind.

Secondly, it is obviously essential that this issue should be debated in the other place. Unless we take out the clause in our House, it will not be debated in the other place. Those who believe that such important changes should always have a proper debate before a decision must, when we have an opportunity to do so, vote to remove this clause.

The purpose of the clause is apparently to provide some privacy to candidates in an election—not, I should be clear, to Members of Parliament, because everyone at a general election is a candidate. Those who may seek to argue that this is not a matter for your Lordships’ House and that it is only a matter for the other place are, I am afraid, off beam. This is an issue that affects every single candidate in an election, by which time, of course, there are no sitting Members.

The purpose of the clause, as we understand it, is to give protection to those who stand as candidates, because it is suggested that for reasons of security it is important that their home addresses should not be made available to the wider public. This is an extraordinarily naive argument. If a terrorist is thinking of attacking a parliamentary candidate, or a candidate at any level, I do not think that that terrorist will wait to see what is said on the nomination paper. I was a Member of Parliament for a good number of years and I had a local office that was widely advertised; its telephone, address and, indeed, my home address were in the telephone book. That is common practice among most Members of Parliament. If we really think that terrorists have no other way of establishing the home address of a parliamentary candidate or any other candidate, we are underrating their ingenuity.

The only way in which this clause makes any sense is if it is being suggested that candidates should not be exposed to the transparent and clear view of their potential constituents. In its briefing for us, the Electoral Commission refers to the practical problems. It states that it is,

“concerned that it would potentially enable only candidates, agents, proposers, seconders and representatives of the Electoral Commission to see candidates’ full addresses. Clause 17 would therefore make it difficult for a member of the public to confirm or disprove a suspicion that a candidate does not live within the constituency that they claim. Moreover, even the people who can see the full address cannot record it for verification at a later date—as existing legislation does not allow those inspecting nomination papers to record information contained within them”.

Therefore, you could give a false address and it would be impossible to verify it. It is surely in the interests of openness and transparency that candidates should be required to provide their home address, to indicate where they are based, what experience they have and what community they belong to. This has been the requirement since the Ballot Act 1872. To change that on the nod, as it were, would seem extraordinary.

In November last year, the Government issued a consultation on this, to which they published their response last Thursday. However, only two MPs expressed a view, which hardly suggests a huge body of opinion waiting to change the law in this way. The two politicians and the Electoral Commission saw some reason for changing the law, but the responses of electoral administrators, returning officers, the Newspaper Society and members of the public all favoured the status quo. The only political party to respond to the consultation was my own. On behalf of our party, my noble friend Lord Rennard expressed strong opposition to the withholding of addresses.

Finally, because I want to be brief and we have a lot of business yet to do, the Government suggested both at Second Reading and since that there is to be a free vote on this issue. Some of us think that all votes in your Lordships’ House should be free, but why pick this matter out for a free vote? It is an interesting suggestion. When the Commons vote took place in the extraordinary circumstances that I described, the Secretary of State, Mr Jack Straw, and the Minister responsible for the Bill, Mr Michael Wills, both firmly voted against the change. I cannot understand why we in this House have to pay particular respect to the new clause. It was bounced in the House of Commons and has no authenticity in the sense of being properly debated or discussed. It changes the law and sends it back to the middle of the 19th century. This seems to me to be a most extraordinary procedure. The Government are not prepared to give a proper lead, as Mr Jack Straw did in the other place.

On those grounds, I hope that the Committee will agree that we should not treat this new clause in any way different from other amendments or other new clauses, and I certainly give notice that if at this stage the Government are disposed to think again about the issue, we will welcome that with open arms. I wait with interest to hear what the Minister has to say.

I intervene to make a brief point. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, speaks from the Liberal Democrat Benches and, as always, we know that the Liberal Democrats are whiter than white in the matter that he refers to as carpetbagging. I thought that I might relate to him a short story about elections that I have been involved with. I remember the 1983 by-election for the constituency of Penrith and The Border, where I live. A colleague of mine was elected for the Conservative Party. He was described as an “offcomer” who had come in from the outside, but as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, will know, the Liberal Democrat candidate was a good local candidate; we hung on to his election literature. At the 1987 election, the same Liberal Democrat candidate stood in the Isle of Wight, where again in his election literature he was described as the local candidate. The Liberals are well known for this sort of stuff. It is not only other parties that are carpetbaggers; the Liberals are just as good as the others.

I do not wish to detain the Committee for long, but I was the minder in the 1983 Penrith and The Border by-election for the Liberal candidate, Mr Michael Young. On Monday at 9 pm, many people will have seen the Channel 4 showing of “Endgame”, which revealed how the said Mr Michael Young played an historic role in bringing about the end of apartheid in South Africa. Furthermore, between the 1983 and 1987 general elections, he spent some time working in South Africa before moving to the Isle of Wight to become the Liberal candidate, although sadly unsuccessfully.

No doubt he was a candidate in South Africa as well—he was moving around. I just thought that the Committee might be interested in hearing about how Liberals behave. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, knows this as well as I do.

My name is on the proposal to oppose Clause 17 standing part of the Bill. I accept that this is controversial, and I have had approaches from my colleagues in another place suggesting that this is no part of our role and responsibility and that we should not intervene on this issue. I am not sure that I can accept that, for reasons that I shall briefly explain.

I hope that we all agree that whether at a parliamentary election a candidate may withhold their home address is an important issue that is worth debating. Wherever you come out on it, it is worth addressing. I begin by following the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, because there is an issue of process here. The provision was slipped in at the very last moment and not debated at all. As the noble Lord hinted—he did not say this specifically—although the measure was passed by 235 votes to 176, examination of the Division list is very interesting. It was not a party issue at all. People felt extremely strongly about it in all parties. Therefore, one responsibility of this House is to give the other place a chance to debate this important issue at a later stage in the passage of the Bill. If noble Lords think that this is not an important issue, of course we should stay out of it.

From a practical point of view, the link between those who seek election and the electorate should be maintained at all costs. Personal details are an important part of that link for many electors, and an address is an important part of the personal details. Those who support Clause 17 believe that it represents a risk to the personal safety of the candidate or the safety of their families. One has to acknowledge that as an issue. My noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville rightly brought this to my attention during the Second Reading debate. I should like to hear from the Government what evidence there is of danger and what has happened in the past that leads us to believe that we need to take this further step. It seems to me that the evidence so far is not great. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said, any malefactor—terrorist or eccentric—of even moderate competence will be able to dig out the candidate’s home address with a view to making his or her case to them, and the appearance of the address on the nomination paper has no real further role to play.

It is a question of balance—of increasing the distance between the candidate and the electorate or putting the candidate and the candidate’s family at risk. In my view, on the evidence that we have to date the advantage lies with maintaining the closest possible link between those who seek election and the electorate. I accept that the other place will have to and should take the final decision, but we are entitled to ask Members there to think about it and debate it so that all the arguments involved in this sensitive issue are fully aired and a proper conclusion reached that is not slipped through in five minutes at the end of a very long and difficult Third Reading debate.

At one stage during the course of this Bill there was a consensus—in the Division lobbies when the Julian Lewis amendment went through that evening. This is an important issue and I support the Lewis amendment strongly. My instinct was initially to support the Liberal position until I had a couple of conversations. The first happened over dinner in the Commons and the second was with my wife. It was the one with my wife that proved most interesting, and the Liberals may want to consider what she said, because I think that she was expressing the view of many families up and down the country.

My wife’s view was that every time I raised a controversial issue on the Floor of the House of Commons, I was not taking into account the position in which I was placing my family. There were times in the early 1990s when I was most vociferous on Iraq, calling for military intervention. I had been at the inaugural conference of the INC in Istanbul—in 1992, if I remember rightly. I had been meeting regularly with Iraqi opposition politicians in London. At one point, I had a conversation with a police officer from the county of Cumbria about the position in the event that any threats were made against my family, because that had been raised by my wife at the time—I unreasonably dismissed it.

I know that during the Iraqi conflict, particularly in the 1990s, when sanctions were very controversial, a number of British Members of Parliament were given warnings by the police. I spoke last night to one Member who was told by the police that car crashes were being arranged by Saddam Hussein’s supporters in London. I know that that Member of Parliament was involved in an incident at a conference in Paris when the police had to close the conference because of threats to representatives of the Iraqi opposition. I know that that Member of Parliament was advised by the police to take particular measures to deal with any problems that might arise.

Last night I spoke to Tom King—I am sorry, to the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater. I asked him about an incident that happened to him, which I remember from my period on the Intelligence and Security Committee. I asked him about it to ensure that it was already in the public domain. Some may remember the incident. His daughter happened to notice while she was on horseback some people at the bottom of the garden or a nearby field. She happened to mention it to the security people on duty outside the noble Lord’s home. They went to check and it turned out that the people were a surveillance squad for the IRA. I understand that they were subsequently prosecuted and went to prison for a year and a half.

What I am saying is that it is not just a question of evidence of a threat; it is whether the families of Members of Parliament feel that, when their spouses, fathers, mothers or whatever get up in Parliament and speak on a controversial issue, they are creating a sense of insecurity within that household.

I accept everything that the noble Lord has said and the serious nature of the allegations and points that he is making, but he is making points about Members of Parliament, not about candidates. The question is: does the appearance of the candidate’s address at election time increase the danger to him sufficiently to justify the distancing from the electorate? The noble Lord is making extremely serious points, which I entirely support, but they are about Members of Parliament carrying out their duties—for which they will certainly be well known in their constituency—as the noble Lord did in his day.

I was coming to that, because there is a direct connection. I go almost all the way with Mr Lewis in the House of Commons, but I would slightly change his proposal, because problems arise. The connection is that if the address of a Member of Parliament is freely available, that can invite irresponsible elements to take irresponsible action. I know that it is often possible by whatever means to identify the information from other sources but, in the world of multimedia, where computerised information can fly around the world, there is no reason why when a ballot paper or a nomination paper is published the address of a candidate who subsequently becomes a Member of Parliament cannot be winged around the world and transmitted to people who for all sorts of reasons might want to organise some campaign within the United Kingdom against that Member. That is the connection.

What would I do about it? I understand that the proposal is simply to put just the name of the constituency, as against putting your full address, if that is what you want to do. Until my conversation with my wife about what happened in the 1990s, I, obviously, always put my full name and address on the nomination papers, which were published. My address was in Keswick, which is where I have spent most of life since 1955. But I do not think that that is enough. More is needed. I would argue that you should put the constituency and the county. Therefore, when I was the Member for Workington, the nomination paper would state, “Workington in the county of Cumbria” or “Penrith and The Border in the county of Cumbria”. Some constituencies have very obscure names. The other day, I mentioned Erewash to Mr Lewis. Who knows where Erewash is? That is insufficient. There are other obscure names of constituencies. One has to give a little more information.

We have to take into account another problem. Let us say that a candidate who stood against me in Workington put “Workington constituency” and nothing else, and I had filled in my Keswick address. People would imagine that the candidate who put “Workington constituency” lived in Workington and that I lived miles away in Keswick in the heart of the leafy Lake District. To some extent that would misrepresent the position, which might be the case for the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, whose constituency was Truro.

No.

I am sorry; I thought that it was Truro. Anyhow, let us say that the Member for Truro might live in a town outside Truro. Simply writing the constituency might mislead the public on the location of where that candidate actually lived. It is important to put the county name and, in the case of the Member who puts his full address, the constituency name should also go down.

In the 1990s, in my election, let us say that the wording for the Conservative candidate, if he did not want to reveal his full address, would have been, “Workington constituency in the county of Cumbria”. In my case, it would have said, “Workington constituency”, followed by my full address. In other words, as regards the constituency, each candidate would have to identify where they lived, even where one of the candidates set out the exact location. That is a compromise, but I do not want to see this provision meddled with.

I know that the noble Lord feels aggrieved that this proposal was not moved in the House of Commons. I have tried to find out what happened, but no one could give me any accurate information. The reality is that it was voted on. Parliament has decided down that end. I hope that it goes through and, if possible, that the Government will amend it in the way that I have suggested. I hope that they are prepared to do so. I wholeheartedly support the proposition.

I disagree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and I find myself aligning myself with my local MP yet again, who I think objected vociferously about the fact that his amendment could not be voted on whereas this random amendment was. Again, it is not for any of us to criticise the procedure of the House of Commons; we merely note what happened. As I understand it, this important issue was passed without debate. Whether or not the amendment was moved formally would be a more legalistic and technical matter. I do not think that what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, suggested was a compromise. It was just a bit daft. My noble friend Lord Tyler’s constituency for most of his life as an MP was North Cornwall. You would not want to state, “North Cornwall in the county of Cornwall”. That is fairly obvious to anyone.

There is a real problem. This is an extraordinary and rather ridiculous proposal. If individual politicians require protection, individual politicians should get protection to the extent that they require it. There is no doubt about that. Pretending that they can hide where they live is nonsense. It is precisely because we live in the age of the internet, with information winging its way around, that if you want to find out where somebody lives you can find out pretty quickly nowadays. It is usually, though not always, fairly accurate. If you want to find any piece of information about anybody, you can find it fairly quickly on this astonishing internet that we have now, so I do not think that politicians can hide.

This risks turning politicians into a cosseted class and it is not on. We are talking about politicians, including candidates, and not only elected representatives, as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, says. How far will we go? Why only Members of the Westminster Parliament? Why not Members of the Scottish Parliament, Members of the Welsh Assembly and Members of the European Parliament? Why not councillors? I have recently taken part in a discussion forum on the internet—as some of us waste our time doing nowadays—about whether councillors should have their home addresses put on the council website. I feel very strongly that we should. It is astonishing to me that anyone could think that I could do my job as a councillor without people knowing where I live. I have spent perhaps 45 years putting out leaflets that tell people where I live, giving them my telephone number and, now, giving them my e-mail addresses. I do it because, to be an active elected representative in a democratic system, where you live and how people can get in touch with you are absolutely fundamental. It is part of what we do all the time, so I find it astonishing that any candidates would want to hide their addresses.

Does the noble Lord think that there are circumstances in which a Member of Parliament might feel restrained or inhibited in what they said because they felt that they would be exposing their family to risk because of the availability of their address in the public domain? Does the noble Lord think that that might ever be a consideration, or does he think that it would never happen?

It might enter the consideration of any elected politician or, indeed, anyone seeking election. Yes, it is part and parcel of the downside of the society that we live in now. There are certainly more people around now who might want to go for a person or their family than there have been in recent years. I am not sure; comparisons with 100 or 200 years ago might reveal something different.

If the noble Lord feels that that is the case, does he not think that sometimes a Member of Parliament may feel that they have a duty to their family to ensure, as best they can, that their address is not in the public domain?

I might consider it as a matter of principle if I thought that it was practical. As I have said, if I want to find out where a Member of Parliament lives, I can do so. If I want to find out where the chairman of a big company lives, I can do so. It is not secret information and it is not possible to keep it secret in the modern world. In a practical sense, I do not think that it works.

As a matter of principle, those of us who take part in active politics, to a greater or lesser extent, accept the risks of doing so. It may affect our families and other people connected to us. I do not know how many people in this Room can say that they have never had undesirable people threaten to do nasty things to them. I have certainly had threats to remove my kneecaps. A couple of years ago there was a banner headline in the local paper when a former BNP candidate was being prosecuted for having a large number of explosives in his house. He lived about a mile away from me then and the headline, from his wife, was, “He wanted to kill Tony Blair and Lord Greaves”. I did not quite understand this extraordinary combination of people, but there it was. It was all reported in court in Manchester and no doubt this man was a threat.

We all know what happened—not for political reasons, but because someone was mentally ill—to my noble friend Lord Jones of Cheltenham. His assistant, a local councillor, was killed at one of his surgeries. Yes, there is always a risk if you take part in public life, and the risk may be higher than it used to be, but it is a risk that we have to accept. If there are people who believe that they need protection, that protection should be provided whether or not they are government Ministers; a proper risk assessment should take place and, if they need the protection, they should get it. There is no doubt about that.

My final point is that I cannot imagine a circumstance in which most parliamentary candidates or any other candidates would want to hide their addresses. Most of them, even if their main residence is not in the constituency, get another residence there—a pied-à-terre, a flat or something—and then put that address on their nomination paper for the parliamentary election. It is certainly somewhere where they live for a time and they are certainly living there during the election campaign. I do not think that candidates would want to hide their addresses and I have to say that opposition candidates would make a point of complaining, “This person will not tell us where he lives”. You can imagine the populist leaflets that people such as my noble friend Lord Rennard and I might put out in such circumstances: “Who is this man? Where does he live? Is it true that he comes from the south of England or Tristan de Cunha or somewhere?”—I was going to say Belize, but that is probably not the right thing to say—“Why doesn’t he live locally? Why won’t he tell us where he lives?”. Once you start on the slippery slope, you then get legislation that says that you cannot do that. If a person is entitled to be anonymous in terms of their address, there will be legislation stating that people cannot use that as an election tool and that you cannot attack candidates for that. And so the slippery slope goes on. This is a silly proposal, which is wrong in principle. It is nothing to do with carpetbaggers but is entirely to do with plain democratic common sense.

The only reason why I brought up carpetbaggers was that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, described this as a carpetbaggers’ charter. He is in the same party, I think, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves.

My noble friend Lord Tyler was never a carpetbagger. I once voted for my noble friend Lord Tyler in an election for the presidency of the Oxford Union. In those days, he came from Cornwall and I came from the north of England. He did not win, but there we go.

We have taken a position on this clause in that it has been debated and decided on in the other place. There was a vote of 235 to 176 in favour of the new clause, which was, therefore, passed. Given that that happened in the Chamber of the elected House and that it relates particularly to that House, it would be unwise of us to seek to reverse it here.

On that point—

Perhaps the noble Lord would let me make a little progress. There will be a point at which he can come in, but I want to cover the points that have been made. But perhaps I should take his intervention now.

I have just two points. The first is that the clause was not debated in the other House; I think that noble Lords recognise that. Secondly, the provision does not relate only to the other House, because all parliamentary candidates are not Members of the House of Commons when they stand.

Well, my understanding is that this was certainly debated at Second Reading and at Third Reading. I want to touch on the key issues. The mechanism by which this came about—the way in which the House of Commons works in its procedures—may not be as elegant as the mechanism in your Lordships’ House, but none the less you can take the view that Dr Julian Lewis was fleet of foot. He was alert and aware of the rules and the opportunity that he had to introduce this clause. He rose and caught the Speaker’s eye at the right time, he made his point and the Speaker ruled in his favour. Therefore the clause stood.

I offer three points as key elements of the debate, as I see it. First, candidates who are applying for election to the other place may not necessarily know where they will end up. They may stand as candidates, be elected to represent a constituency, reveal their home address and then be posted to the Northern Ireland Office or to a defence post. The relevant amendment does not propose that no candidate can disclose their address; it simply says that people can disclose their full address if they wish—voters at the polling station will give that due weight—or they can withhold it if they feel that disclosing it puts them at risk.

Secondly, it could be suggested that such a process somehow represents a denial of local democracy. A candidate’s place of origin is often a material point of debate in by-elections and general elections. One can envisage publicity being given to such statements as, “I am a local person. I have lived in the local town all my life. My children attend school locally”.

My third point relates particularly to the Liberal Democrats, who tabled the relevant amendment but failed to recognise that we regarded this as a matter of conscience. The Government and the Official Opposition allowed their Members a free vote on the matter, whereas the Liberal Democrats applied a three-line Whip, which I understand was defied by six Members.

However, there is another aspect to political debate. This may not apply to the Liberal Democrats but, as regards some of the other parties, people are voting for the local candidate and for a national Government. We need to bear in mind that material fact.

I heard the remarks of my noble friend Lord Hodgson and recognise his expertise and knowledge in this area, but the Conservative Front Bench believes that this decision should be taken in the other place and that the other place has the authority and right to do so.

I shall speak briefly, as powerful speeches have already been made on this issue. As someone who stood as a candidate for election to another place on nine occasions and was elected, it seems to me that awareness of my address would not have enhanced the probability of my becoming the victim of a terrorist attack or of my family vicariously running the risks that we have discussed. It seems to me that there is in this country a somewhat paranoid response to terrorism and that threats are being disproportionately represented. That is not to say that threats do not exist. Every day we see on our monitor that this place faces severe threats. However, if we respond to every possibility of such threats by curtailing information and the accessibility of those in public life, we diminish our democracy.

As a spokesman for some years on Northern Ireland, I well recall being subjected to threats. I remember being told that I had to assume a name when I stayed at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, which seemed preposterous, although even more preposterous was that the then leader of my party, the now noble Lord, Lord Owen, was also told to assume a name, when his face was one of the most familiar in the British Isles.

Those sorts of responses seem suitable for acting on when a particular individual is subject to a particular threat, but I cannot see that we should regard everyone who stands for Parliament as being in such a category. I have not heard a single word to suggest that anyone in charge of security in our country regards that as a reasonable proposition. It is time that we got a sense of what it means to our society to behave in this way, running for cover all the time, and how diminishing it will be if we follow the logic of such a step.

I hope that the other place will debate this issue. It is not something to be shuffled through. I am not making any comments about procedures in another place, although I think that my noble friend Lord Tyler is entirely right to draw attention to the oddity of what happened. However, it is important enough, as this affects the rights not only of candidates for Parliament but of voters. This should not be done without discussion in the elected House. It is right that we should enable that discussion to take place in future by indicating that we are not content with this clause as it stands.

I am not going to comment on procedural matters in the other place. Clause 17 removes the requirement on candidates to provide their full address on election documents, including ballot papers, at UK parliamentary elections. This clause was inserted into the Bill following an amendment tabled by the honourable Member for New Forest East, Dr Julian Lewis, and accepted by the other place on Report. The clause provides that at a parliamentary election, should a candidate prefer that their full home address is not made public, the statement of persons nominated and the ballot paper at an election will instead identify the constituency within which their address is situated.

Changing the requirement for the home addresses of candidates to appear on nomination and ballot papers represents a significant change to the electoral process. That is why the Government indicated last autumn, when an amendment was first tabled on this matter in the other place, that we could not simply lend our support to such an amendment. Instead, it was our firm view that we should hold a public consultation on the matter to test the strength of feeling on the issue. The Government issued a consultation paper on 26 November 2008 and made it clear that they had not formed a view that change was needed, but were consulting to test the arguments on both sides. From the 65 responses received to the consultation, it was clear that there are strongly held views both for and against changing the legislation. Broadly speaking, the majority of the politicians who responded and the Electoral Commission favoured change, while administrators, returning officers and the majority of the responses from the public did not. Those in favour argue that candidates and their families face a higher risk to their safety and security, which warrants a need for their home addresses to be removed from the public domain.

As a result of the responses to the consultation and the importance of the issue, we took the view that the matter would be for the other place and not the Government to decide on. Hence, there was a free vote on the issue, which allowed those who were elected to make a decision on their behaviour during elections and on the information which should be made available to the public. We see our role here as facilitating a full debate on the issue. We had hoped that it was more appropriate for Report, and we are already committed to giving a free vote on the clause if, as we expect, there is a Division on the issue. The Government do not support the clause, we are simply facilitating a free vote by including it in the Bill. On that basis, I move that the clause stand part of the Bill.

This has been a very full debate and I do not want to detain the Committee, but at the outset I must make an apology to the Committee. I inadvertently referred to candidates generally in referring to Clause 17. I want to make it absolutely clear that Clause 17 refers only to parliamentary candidates. As my noble friend Lord Greaves pointed out, candidates for some of the devolved Assemblies might be in a much more difficult situation. Imagine an Assemblyman in Stormont. He or she might very well feel that the provision was cosseting parliamentary candidates for Westminster in a totally unreasonable way.

It is also true, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said, that the clause does not meet his requirements. It is defective in precisely the way he pointed out with its reference to constituencies rather than to the general area or county, which might well be more appropriate. That reference is in new section (5)(b), which states that the home address form,

“may contain a statement made and signed by the candidate that he requires the home address not to be made public”.

If he does so, he,

“must state the constituency within which the address is situated”.

So the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, cannot support the clause in its present form.

The point I want to make, and the one which the Minister has just made, is that we have had a debate here, but so far there has not been a full debate in the House of Commons. The only way we can facilitate that—I take precisely the point made by the Minister a few moments ago—is by rejecting the clause when we come to Report in our House, your Lordships’ House, so that there will have to be a debate in the Commons. Until that happens, all the points that have been made this afternoon simply hang in the air; they have not been given opportunity for expression in the place that we all agree should be where the decision is made. This is an important issue. We are reversing the transparency agreed in 1872 in the Ballot Act. I take very seriously the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. In that sense it is a big decision, not for parliamentarians and not even for parliamentary candidates, but for the public. We are reversing something that has been our established practice for a considerable number of years—I cannot do the calculation, is it 130 or 137 years?

It is 137 years.

My noble friend is always helpful. It is 137 years.

I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, but everything he has said this afternoon must take him to vote against the inclusion of the clause when we reach Report, otherwise there will be no debate in the other place. In my view, there must be such a debate. I also very much respect the point he makes about family. When I was first elected to the House of Commons in 1974, it was with a majority of nine. At three o’clock in the morning, just a few days afterwards, we were rung up by a pig farmer who said, “My family and I, we was the nine”. Of course they were.

Throughout the whole of that Parliament, my telephone number and home address were in the directory. We had people on the doorstep, but not usually at three o’clock in the morning, and not always pig farmers. Throughout the period when Iraq was a big issue—I voted against the invasion of Iraq, which was not popular at the time—my telephone number and address were in the book. I take very seriously the fact that we who enter public life take on that responsibility, that risk; in no way do I step back from that, and I think that my wife would take the same view. At the time when the pig farmer rang, my children were quite small—one child was on the way, if I remember rightly—but by the time Iraq came along, they were well and truly grown-up and had sensibly left the parental home, so there was not the same sort of risk.

Do we honestly think that Saddam Hussein—I do not think that he was very efficient in these matters—would have gone around the electoral registration offices to look up the addresses given by parliamentary candidates at the previous election? Of course not. As several of my noble friends have said, there are much easier ways to obtain the private addresses of individuals. I come back to the point that that would be as true of a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly as someone who standing for the Westminster Parliament. It is a red herring, and the security issue is a non-starter. If it really is thought to be so important, why have we not had a brief from the security services, as my noble friend Lord Maclennan said? No one has provided any evidence that this is a necessary protection for parliamentary candidates. There are obviously much more important issues and much more important ways in which this can be obtained.

Does the noble Lord accept that it is not so much security in the mind of the Member, but security in the mind of the family of the Member that matters?.

I endorse that, which is why if Members, their families, parliamentary candidates or anyone at any level clearly needs protection, we will be advised by the police. In the past, I was advised to look very carefully under my car every time I took it out. That is part of the risk we take as public representatives, which would be true of your Lordships’ House. Are we going to suggest that Members of your Lordships’ House should not give their home address in any circumstances? We do so every time we claim for allowances. Will it be said now that that is protected information which should not be obtainable under the Freedom of Information Act? To advance the argument on security is to miss the point that there are many easier ways in which to obtain home addresses.

I do not intend to keep your Lordships much longer. I emphasise that if this debate is to take place where it should take place—in the other House—this House has to make sure that the clause is voted down on Report. I shall leave it at that.

Will the noble Lord clarify something? Effectively, his problem is that this matter was not debated. Taking that point, does he accept that the other place has expressed a view, none the less, through a vote? Presumably, those honourable Members knew what they were doing when they went into the Division Lobby. They may not have had the debate that he seeks, but they have certainly expressed a view.

They expressed a view. I do not want to sound patronising, but I am not quite sure for how long the noble Lord, Lord Bates, was a Member of the House of Commons. I was a Member for some years and I was Chief Whip for some years. Just occasionally, even on a free vote, not all Members of the House of Commons are absolutely cognisant of all the arguments for or against a proposition.

Not all—

Let me finish. All I am saying is that for this issue to go back to the House of Commons for the sort of debate that it would seem everyone here thinks is necessary, we have to make sure that it is excluded from the Bill on Report.

As a former Chief Whip, the noble Lord will recognise that there will be limited debate with Members of the Liberal Democrats who trooped into the Lobby on a three-line whip. But there was very careful consideration perhaps given by those who were offered a free vote and therefore chose to express their vote in one way or the other.

Since it was not anticipated that that vote would take place at all—it was not in the grouping under discussion and had not been moved—the key issue addressed by the noble Lord is encapsulated in the word “perhaps”. Perhaps they all took a very careful view on this, but I do not think that that is likely to have been the case. The evidence from all sides of the House, including some of the noble Lord’s colleagues and very senior Members—I have Hansard here—on the Back Benches of the Conservative Party, also expressed considerable reservations about the way in which this was handled. It was not in the group under discussion. It had not been moved and it had not been debated. I should leave it there because we have other important issues to come to in Committee.

We have been going for two hours. In accordance with our new convention, I propose that we take a break for 10 minutes. In the very real possibility that there may be a Division during that break, I propose that we merge the two conventions and resume 10 minutes after the Division is called.

I will speak also to Amendment 124. The two amendments complement one another. It is logical to start with the argument for Amendment 124 and then lead in to Amendment 122. When we discussed the electoral register during the passage of the Representation of the People Act 2000, I argued that completing the electoral registration form was an essential exercise in civic duty, and one imposed by statute. The electoral register is core to our parliamentary democracy. It is essential that it is as full and accurate as possible. It should not be affected by incidental activities that have no bearing on compiling an accurate register. I made the case in 2001 for not permitting the electoral register to be sold to commercial and other bodies not connected to the electoral process. The Government failed to accept that argument, instead making provision for the edited register in due time, enabling electors to opt out of having their names included on the register that is sold to anybody who wishes to purchase it.

My starting point is that the edited version of the register should be abolished. In arguing that case, I am in good company. The Association of Electoral Administrators wants to see it scrapped; so too does the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner. That was recommendation 19 of the Thomas-Walport report on data sharing published last year. Indeed, I can do no better than repeat the words of the report:

“We feel that selling the edited register is an unsatisfactory way for local authorities to treat personal information. It sends a particularly poor message to the public that personal information collected for something as vital as participation in the democratic process can be sold to ‘anyone for any purpose’. And there is a belief that the sale of the electoral register deters some people from registering at all. We are sympathetic to the strong arguments made by the Association of Electoral Administrators and the Electoral Commission that the primary purpose of the electoral register is for electoral purposes”.

There is no compelling case for retaining the edited version. I have not seen any such case. I have read an article arguing the case for retaining it, but it fell short of being compelling. One argument was that it would help people in tracing their family trees.

The edited version is sold to anyone who wishes to purchase it. It is sold at cost and there is no benefit to the local authority. It imposes a significant burden on electoral registration officers. They have to compile it, even though—and this is the fundamental point—it has no relevance to their role as electoral registration officers. It gets in the way of fulfilling their role of compiling the electoral register, which is the basis of elections in this country. Electoral registration officers are core to the electoral process in this country. They are under tremendous pressure when compiling the register. Compiling the edited version adds a totally unnecessary burden. In essence, it gets in the way of our democratic system. There is thus a practical argument against retaining it. I see no principled reason for retaining it; rather, the reverse. Why should citizens be required by law to complete a registration form for the purpose of being able to exercise their right to vote and at the same time be required to decide whether they wish to have their names included on a register that is to be sold to junk-mail companies and any other body that is keen to get hold of the valuable dataset? That is the argument.

I can anticipate the Minister’s response to how the amendment is drafted. I suspect he will point out that the powers embodied in the new clause already exist. However, at this stage I am keen to get a statement of the Government’s position on the future of the edited register. The Government propose to consult on the recommendation of the Thomas-Walport report. As far as I am aware, the consultation has not taken place. Given the passage of time since the report was published, this suggests that the Government are not treating it with any great urgency. In my view, there may be a case for taking action now to end publication of the edited register.

There is an important issue of principle which will not be affected by consultation, and Bills dealing with electoral law are relatively rare. It is clear that they do not have the status of criminal justice Bills, so it may be several years before we have a chance to return to the issue. Given that, I believe there is merit in getting a government commitment to scrapping the edited register or, failing that, making provision in this Bill to bring the edited register to an end.

My preferred option is to get rid of the edited register, ideally as soon as possible. However, so long as it remains, there needs to be a switch from providing for electors to opt out to providing for them to opt in to the edited register. The present provision means that one cannot demonstrate that electors have given informed consent to their names appearing in the edited register. When the edited version of the register was introduced, practice appeared to vary between local authorities as to how much publicity was given to the new register and the procedure for opting out. It is not clear that electors are well informed about what is entailed in allowing their names to appear on the edited register. Something like 40 per cent of electors opt out, but we do not know how many of the 60 per cent who do appear on the register are aware that they have given their consent to their names appearing on it.

I raised the issue of opting in some years ago with the Minister’s predecessor. I was told in conversation that the department had looked at the idea, but that there were practical problems to moving from opting out to opting in. I was promised a letter explaining what the problems were, but that was a few years ago and I am still waiting. It may be that today the Minister will tell me what those practical difficulties are.

If there are practical difficulties, to my mind there are two options. The first is to overcome them and the second is simple: if the practical obstacles cannot be overcome, then get rid of the edited register. The present situation is simply not acceptable. The Government would have saved themselves a great deal of trouble had they accepted the argument eight years ago for prohibiting the sale of the electoral register. If they are to persevere with an edited register, it must be on the basis of electors giving their informed consent to the inclusion of their names. However, in my view, the existence of such a register is simply not compatible with the core stipulated purpose of the electoral registration form. The ideal situation is to get rid of the edited register. I beg to move.

I have a great deal of sympathy with this amendment. I do not have any sympathy with the concept of opting in because I think that it would be impractical, it will not happen and hardly anyone would take any notice of it. I say that because people do not understand what the opting-out process is. Opting in is even more difficult and therefore is not an option. I opposed the concept when we introduced it a long time ago. It is wrong to ask people to register and then sell the registers for commercial purposes. People have said to me that they are reluctant to put their names on the register, not knowing that they can opt out, because they do not believe that others should have access to it. It should be only for the purposes for which the electoral register has been established; that is, the purpose of elections. So I have sympathy with the amendment, but not with the opting in bit.

I shall be brief. I have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Norton, speak on this subject before and I concur with his general principle on data management—that the principle ought always to be opt-in rather than opt-out. I am sympathetic to the argument that who in their right mind would tick a box on the forms to opt in to receive unlimited junk mail? We receive representations from those engaged in the direct mail business and perhaps it seems a little hypocritical of political parties to say that they want to be able to mail people but they do not want commercial companies to do so. However, the purpose of the electoral register is democracy and the purpose of political parties is to promote their messages legitimately. It is not right that someone who registers to vote should then have to consider whether they should receive junk mail.

I do not always agree with the views expressed by the Association of Electoral Administrators and other bodies with which I have discussed election campaigns. I feel that they would prefer there to be no leaflets, posters, tellers at polling stations or canvassing because in their mind that gets in the way of elections, which they consider would be much simpler without those things. However, as regards the matter we are discussing I have considerable sympathy with it because we are imposing increasing burdens on it. We shall shortly discuss the introduction of personal identifiers. We appear to be saying to local authorities that they have much more work to do to improve the accuracy and completeness of the electoral register. Perhaps this measure represents a burden that we should drop.

Electoral officers concur with the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. In a survey, 98 per cent indicated that they would like the law to be changed to abolish the edited register that councils have to sell to direct marketing companies. Eighty-eight per cent believe that the current system deters people from voting. On average, councils raise around £1,900 a year from selling the register, which does not go nearly far enough to recover the costs of producing the edited register. This matter needs to be looked at. Moreover, in July the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, and Mark Walport, director of medical charity the Wellcome Trust, examined this issue in their data sharing review. They said:

“The edited register is available for sale to anyone for any purpose. Its main clients are direct marketing companies and companies compiling directories. Members of the public can choose to have their details omitted from the edited register by ticking a box on their electoral registration or annual canvass form. Currently around 40 per cent of those registered to vote across the UK opt out in this way. However, the language used on these forms can be confusing, and many people do not realise it is the edited register that is on public sale.

In any event, we feel that selling the edited register is an unsatisfactory way for local authorities to treat personal information. It sends a particularly poor message to the public that personal information collected for something as vital as participation in the democratic process can be sold to ‘anyone for any purpose’”.

That extract links two elements in the Bill; namely, financing, campaigning and funding, which we debated energetically, and the integrity of, and participation in, the voting system. Some, for example the Local Government Association, believe that we should simply get rid of the edited electoral register. That view is probably also held by the Information Commissioner, although he has not explicitly stated it. That option is expressed in Amendment 124 in the name of my noble friend Lord Norton. The more measured Amendment 122, standing in my name and those of my noble friends Lord Henley and Lord Norton of Louth, simply says that people ought to be able to opt into the edited electoral register. We discussed that principle earlier in relation to other aspects of party financing. I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s response to these reasonable amendments that have garnered cross-party support.

Amendment 122 introduces a new clause substituting a revised paragraph into Regulation 93(2) of the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001. That regulation currently states that the edited version of the electoral register should omit those persons who have made a request to be excluded, commonly referred to as opting out.

The edited version of the register came into existence as a result of the Representation of the People Act Regulations 2000, which enacted the recommendations of the Howarth working party report on electoral law and practice, as published in October 1999. Previously, there was only one electoral register and that was made available to anyone for any purpose. It was the present Government who offered some protection of electors' details by allowing an opt-out for those who did not want their details sold and that led to the creation of two versions of the register, the full and the edited. This amendment would reverse the current arrangements by requiring electors to proactively state on a canvass form or an individual rolling registration form that they wanted to be included in the edited register, effectively introducing the need to opt in. Opt-out rather than opt-in was based on a recommendation of the Data Protection Registrar at the time of a government consultation that helped inform our decision to create the edited register.

Amendment 124 allows for the Secretary of State to lay a statutory instrument before Parliament that will cease to allow the compilation and publication of the edited version of the electoral register. This instrument would require resolution by both Houses. Noble Lords may recall that in his speech to Liberty on 25 October 2007, the Prime Minister announced that he had asked Dr Mark Walport and Richard Thomas to undertake an independent review of the framework for the use of personal information in the public and private sectors. On 11 July 2008, Dr Walport and Mr Thomas published their final report, the Data Sharing Review, which makes a number of recommendations to the Government. Recommendation No. 19 of the report calls for the edited version of the register to be abolished.

The Government clearly understand the concerns around the sale of personal details through the supply of the edited register but, before deciding whether or not to take forward Recommendation 19, we need to establish how removing the provisions would impact on the UK economy, businesses, charities and the general public. We emphasise that this is particularly true at a time of economic difficulty, when the impact of such changes would need to be carefully considered in the light of all relevant factors. It would be most unfortunate if such amendments had a demonstrably negative impact on the activities of local small businesses, while not being thought to be necessary by the public. It is for this reason that in our response to the Recommendation 19 we announced that we would hold a public consultation. The consultation will enable us to build a firmer evidence base about the advantages and disadvantages of the edited register and consider the way forward on the basis of the responses received.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. In the last passage of his speech, which I have listened to carefully, he commented that the Prime Minister asked Richard Thomas and Mark Walport to undertake an analysis of the effectiveness and appropriateness of the edited register. Recommendation 19 came back from them and they said that it should be abolished. Is he now saying that the answer to getting the answer that he did not want is simply just to recast the question to a wider audience?

We are merely going through the orderly process of making legislation, which is our custom. We have received a report; we have a particular recommendation; we recognise the wide support for it, but we are aware that it will have negative impacts on a number of businesses and charities and we feel a need to consult more widely before we make a final decision.

The timing of the consultation has not been decided but we intend to launch it by the summer Recess. In the mean time, noble Lords may take comfort in the fact that electors may continue to opt out of the edited register under the current provisions. That is a real legislative safeguard that we moved quickly to put in place following a legal challenge on the point and demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that personal data are properly protected. That commitment is ongoing and serious and our desire to consult on Recommendation 19 is fully consistent with that.

In view of our intention to consult, and particularly in the light of the difficult economic climate, I believe that it would be more sensible to examine the results of the consultation before making any changes to the current regulations. We certainly cannot accept amendments in this Bill that could risk having a negative impact on the UK’s recovery, without gauging the possible size of such an impact and considering the other advantages or disadvantages that removing the edited register might have.

The Minister seems not to have taken account of the arguments that might actually dissuade people from putting their name on the electoral register—the democratic argument—that it is an abuse of people’s privacy, when people have given information for an electoral purpose. The only argument that the Government now have for keeping the electoral register is a commercial one. Would the Minister answer that specific point and, secondly, comment on the fact that many organisations assemble data for marketing purposes and the likelihood is that, if local authorities do not produce an edited register, new markets will open up for businesses to compile registers of people who wish to receive material in a legitimate and commercial way?

We are committed to taking steps to bolster registration rates wherever possible. The consultation will give us a clearer picture of the impact of the edited register on people’s willingness to register. At present, we do not have sufficient evidence to support the assertion that the existence of the edited register discourages people from voting.

In addition, accepting Amendment 124 may give the impression that the outcome of the consultation has already been determined in favour of Recommendation 19, when that is certainly not the case. Accepting Amendment 122 would also introduce changes that may not necessarily reflect the views of those who respond to the consultation. I hope that noble Lords will agree and will withdraw the amendments.

I might agree to do the latter, but I do not agree with the former observation. I am very grateful for the support from all parts of the Committee for the amendments. I am gratified that the weight of opinion was in favour of getting rid of the register. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, to the logical conclusion that, in principle, opting in is necessary, just for the protection of data. The principle is compelling, but then you run up against the practical problem, which the noble Baroness has identified, that probably very few people will register, in which case what is the point of having the register at all? I think that that leads logically to getting rid of it. I am very grateful for the weight of opinion in the Committee on that, and very much take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made about the burden on electoral registration officers. It is already considerable; we shall be placing an even more significant burden on them for the purpose of individual registration, which is necessary because of the principle underpinning that particular change. Let us get rid of a burden that they should not be fulfilling anyway, because it has no relevance to their role as electoral registration officers.

That brings me to the Minister’s response—not so much what he said but what he never said. At no point did he address the fundamental issue of principle. His argument was addressed solely in terms of practical benefit to junk mail companies and others, which might derive some sort of economic benefit. I am sorry, but there are two responses to that. If it is wrong to have the edited version of the register, it is simply wrong on principle, and the fact that it may benefit some of us out there does not get round that fundamental point. The actual practical point was touched on by my noble friend Lord Bates; there are other bodies that can go out and compile these datasets that will be useful to junk mail companies and others. The Minister has not addressed that point at all.

I mentioned a recommendation from the Thomas-Walport report, which was not that there should be consultation on the issue, but was to get rid of the edited version. It is wrong to have the consultation and I am not sure how it will generate some of the data that the Minister thinks it will. I am not persuaded at all by that. If the Government were that keen on consultation, it should have been completed by now, considering when the report was published. The Government are dragging their heels. If we are going to act, this is the time. We may well come to this matter on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

The amendment has a simple objective: to extend from 15 to 20 years the period during which individuals living overseas can remain on the electoral register. This period was reduced from 20 to 15 years in the PPER Act 2000, and I seek to reverse that on three grounds. The first is that we live in an era of increasing globalisation and internationalisation of economic activity, a process which has gathered pace since the reduction of the qualifying period in 2000. Secondly, we need to reflect the different nature of modern society and the mobility of populations. Thirdly, I seek to reflect the fact of Britain’s membership of the European Union.

More than 3 million British citizens live overseas and a number of them are being, and increasingly will be, disenfranchised by the present limit of 15 years. Who are they? First, they are people who work overseas for UK companies or for subsidiaries of US or foreign companies operating in this country. Some people may say that that represents a limited number of people. I am not sure that that is right. One of my greatest friends at university worked for an American company based in London, but he worked overseas for his entire career. He did that because he enjoyed working for smaller subsidiaries, away from head-office politics. He worked in Lisbon, Moscow and Nairobi. He knew of many other people who effectively spent all of their careers overseas, which would have taken them over the current 15-year limit.

Secondly, there are those who work for NGOs, including Oxfam and others, who will spend many years overseas in the pursuance of their careers. Within that there are, of course, governmental organisations. My noble friend Lord Norton of Louth is addressing this issue in Amendment 125 and I will therefore say no more about that, other than to draw the Committee’s attention to that category of people.

Thirdly, there are those who retire overseas after a lifetime of endeavour and of paying tax to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Why the sunshine of Spain should be better than the challenging conditions of the British weather, I simply cannot understand. There it is—they simply go overseas for the rest of their lives.

All these people continue to contribute to our life and many of them have paid a great deal of tax along the way. In 1989, Mr Alistair Darling, then the opposition spokesman, said that 20 years was a sensible compromise. He said:

“it is now clear that a number of people will leave this country … but will still maintain a lively interest in the affairs of this country”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/7/89; col. 411.]

It is important to maintain that lively interest. My university friend who worked overseas for a US company all his life has maintained such a lively interest, because he is back in the United Kingdom and is involved in politics, although, sadly, with the party of the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard, not my party; but there we are, he maintains his lively interest.

We touched on this in the debate nine years ago when my late friend Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish suggested that we could have a “use it or lose it” provision. People would have to register during an initial period—in that case, in the first five years—and thereafter had to register every year to show that they were in touch with what was going on in the UK and that any failure in that chain would result in the loss of the right to vote. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, who spoke in that debate, will remember all the machinations that went on. That just shows that if you wait long enough, it all comes round again. If the Government were inclined towards a “use it or lose it” provision, I would be perfectly happy with that. At the moment, I want to reflect modern society, modern economic conditions and modern ways of living. As through the Bill we want to extend democratic participation and involvement, I want to do so to those who live abroad who show an interest in the United Kingdom, and I therefore beg to move.

I rise to speak to Amendment 125, which is grouped. As my noble friend said, the Representation of the People Act 1983 provides that all British citizens who reside abroad lose their right to vote in British elections after 15 years and, as he has explained, his amendment would extend that period to 20 years.

My amendment is not concerned with the period specified but, rather, those who are or should be exempt from its provisions. Under Section 14 of the 1983 Act, certain British citizens who live abroad who do not fulfil the normal residence requirements for voting are entitled to make a declaration that enables them to continue to vote. They comprise members of the Armed Forces, others employed in the service of the Crown in a post outside the UK, British Council employees working outside the UK and the spouses of the people in those categories. The reasons for the exemptions are rational. They are not people who have chosen to live abroad permanently but, rather, are people who work abroad or are married to people who work abroad where that service may be seen from the perspective of the United Kingdom as a public good.

My amendment would extend the provisions of Section 14 to encompass British citizens working abroad for international organisations. As the law stands, they are not exempt and lose the right to vote after 15 years but, in general, are not able to apply for the right to vote in national parliamentary elections in their country of residence. International civil servants are not regarded as taking up residence in the country where they serve. Those recruited to EU institutions from the UK remain domiciled in the UK for tax purposes, although they are physically resident in Belgium or Luxembourg. Their tax liabilities are to the employing organisation for their salary, and to the United Kingdom in respect of investment and miscellaneous income. Furthermore, in general, as international civil servants enjoy certain quasi-diplomatic immunities, they are not permitted to naturalise as citizens of their country of residence. It seems anomalous to leave them in what, after 15 years, amounts to a vacuum in the democratic process.

My amendment would bring them into line with Crown servants and their spouses and thus bring them within the provisions of Section 14. I add that the unusual situation of British citizens working for international organisations is already recognised in statute. Under the British Nationality Act 1981 and the British Citizenship (Designated Service) Order 2006, the Secretary of State may waive the normal residence requirement for the spouse of a British civil servant working abroad who wishes to apply for British nationality through naturalisation. Section 2 of the Act also recognises the particular position of UK citizens working for international organisations in respect of acquisition of British nationality by descent. The Act allows British citizens by descent working for international organisations to transmit British nationality to their children born outside the United Kingdom.

UK citizens working outside the United Kingdom for international organisations are in a special position. That is already recognised in statute. They are, I contend, in a position analogous to Crown servants working abroad, rather than to those British citizens who leave these shores to live in sunnier climes and who may well have no intention of returning. Given that, it is right that we should extend the provision of Section 14 of the 1983 Act to encompass them; hence my amendment, which I commend to the Committee.

It is important to distinguish between these two amendments, although they are grouped together. I am less than convinced by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, than by that of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, for a number of reasons.

I was rudely interrupted, but nevertheless I shall be extremely brief. I said that I have less sympathy with Amendment 123 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, because I believe that the issues of mobility to which he properly referred mean that it is in fact quite rare for people to go abroad for such long periods on the sort of job he was referring to. Indeed, it is now much more common to go to other parts of the world for shorter periods. There might be a better case if we linked the issue of qualifying for elections to whether the individual had a tax–paying responsibility in this country, on the principle the Americans used to such good effect: no taxation without representation. I am also anxious that we should not be distracted by the issue of European Union citizenship. The Minister may be able to confirm that EU citizens can vote in EU parliamentary elections wherever they are in the Union, so it is important that that issue should be taken out of this discussion because it is completely separate.

I turn to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. There is an anomaly here which needs to be addressed. It is rather extraordinary that we single out employees of the British Council, and yet someone serving this country in a specific official capacity in a number of important international organisations should not be considered. While I am a great fan of the British Council, this is a genuine anomaly and there is considerable justification for Amendment 125. With that, I have said enough.

I am sorry to have missed the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton, who was sitting in her usual place. I said as a harbinger yesterday that the promotion of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Hodgson would bring us back to the circumstances in July 1989, that brief and honeyed month, when consensualists all around the country were hoping that the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, and I, in whose hands lay all the decision-making about electoral reform, would reach agreement before the Summer Recess. It was the noble Baroness and I who reached agreement on the original figure of 20 years as the period within which people could live abroad in order to secure the vote.

In advance of the 2000 Bill, the then Home Secretary Mr Straw made a statement on the Government’s intentions and indicated that they were proposing in legislation to change the 20-year figure. Mr Chris Mullin MP—at this point I paraphrase—said how glad he was to hear that the Home Secretary would change the ruthless way in which the Conservative Government had pushed through the period of 20 years in a gesture worthy of Tory Visigoths. I intervened to recount what had happened in 1989 between the noble Baroness and myself in securing the consensus, and either by telepathy or by that invisible thread by which the noble Baroness controls the Home Office, the Home Secretary confirmed at the Dispatch Box that every word I had uttered was entirely correct and that the 20-year period had been reached by consensus between the noble Baroness and myself.

So far as I am concerned, anything that the noble Baroness and I can agree is the optimal figure with which to proceed, and the fact that someone intervened initially with a more destructive amendment and then, by the happy compromise that governs affairs in this nation, came up with a figure halfway between 20 years and the Government’s original intention, makes me happy to speak in support of my noble friend. As I say, anything decided by the noble Baroness and me is likely, in my view, to stand the test of time.

I add my support from the Front Bench on this side for the amendments tabled in the names of my noble friends Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbots and Lord Norton of Louth. The points made have been clear and comments have been made about people who retire overseas. I want to make one point and I have a couple of questions for the Minister. What is the Government’s principal position in their argument as regards a time limit on a British citizen living overseas having a right to vote in UK elections? What is the basis of that argument? The amendment refers to substituting 20 years for 15 years.

Here I declare an interest: my son has been studying overseas for five years. Having seemed to enjoy draining his father of a grant and fees, which I have happily provided, he has been encouraged to go on still further. I am reminded that many young people now travel and begin their working lives overseas. Access for people to travel to international universities and colleges to study and perhaps begin their careers is a wholly beneficial aspect of globalisation. From the perspective of someone retiring to Spain, which is a traditional argument, 15 years may seem an appropriate length of time actuarially. However, from the perspective of a student who is studying and resident overseas for the beginning of their career, clearly the limit is wholly inadequate. It is entirely possible that decisions which may affect that person or their parents, or in which they may have a particular interest, could be taken or proposed by a Government. Quite rightly, the person would wish to express their vote in an election. That is my only additional point. I absolutely support the amendments in the names of my noble friends.

Amendment 123 makes amendments to the Representation of the People Act 1985 which sets out the time limitation placed on those British electors wishing to register as overseas electors. Subsection (2) of the proposed new clause under Amendment 123 would amend Section 1(3)(c) and subsection (4)(a) of the Act to substitute the time limitation for relying on a previous entry in the electoral register from 15 years to 20 years. Subsection (3) of the proposed new clause replicates this arrangement for peers residing overseas by also substituting the time limitation of 15 years to 20 years in Section 3(3)(c) and subsection (4)(a) of the Act.

Noble Lords may be aware that the 1985 Act provided for the first time for British citizens living overseas to be able to vote in general and European elections in the UK. Initially, electors could register as overseas electors at the last place they were registered in the UK for a period of five years. However, this period increased to 20 years under the Representation of the People Act 1989 and was decreased to 15 years during the passage of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The matter was debated in both Houses and the conclusion set out in the Act was that 15 years was a more appropriate length of time. The new 15-year limit has applied since 1 April 2002.

I appreciate that some may view a time limit for UK citizens overseas as harsh, particularly for those who may not have a vote in the national elections of their country of residence. However, I think noble Lords will agree that it would be inappropriate to allow the voting rights of UK citizens overseas to continue beyond 15 years given that generally, over time, their connection to the UK is likely to diminish. The latest amendment seeks to increase the period again, but as far as the Government are concerned, the current 15-year limitation is a sufficient period for a person to retain links with the United Kingdom. We are not aware of any compelling argument or evidence that would justify such a move at this time. Rather than tinkering with the time limitation again, more focus should be placed on raising registration rates among those residing overseas, such as expatriates and British citizens working abroad. This is because the number of registered overseas electors is extremely low. Fewer than 13,000 were registered in England and Wales as of 1 December 2008.

The good news is that the Electoral Commission, which is responsible for promoting electoral registration, has over the past few years been working with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to promote registration for overseas electors. During autumn 2008 the commission undertook extensive activity comprising a wide-ranging campaign of online and press advertisements in newspapers and magazines aimed at British expatriates in the countries with the highest British populations. In November 2008 the commission also chaired a round-table discussion to explore ways of encouraging British citizens living abroad to register to vote, and of improving the provision of electoral information to overseas voters. In attendance were a range of stakeholders, including interested politicians, relevant government departments, electoral administrators, embassy staff and the Royal Mail. The commission has not yet provided any details of the outcome of those discussions but plans to do so in due course. Our view is that the 15-year time limitation is a sufficient period for a person to retain links with the UK, and thus we do not see any merit in accepting this amendment.

Amendment 125 introduces a clause that would add a new category of person to be enfranchised under Section 14(1) of the Representation of the People Act 1983. We hypothesise that this amendment is as a result of correspondence between officials in my department and a group of British international civil servants working for the European Commission in Brussels. They have argued that it is unfair that they lose their right to vote after 15 years and that they should have the same rights as Crown servants working overseas. We are sympathetic to their position. The effect of the amendment would be to allow British international civil servants to make a service declaration when registering to vote overseas in the same way as Crown servants. This would exempt them from the requirement that, to register to vote as an overseas voter, they must demonstrate that they have appeared on the UK electoral register within 15 years of the time at which they wish to register.

Before any changes can be implemented, the Government must thoroughly examine the proposal. We need to be particularly careful not to make premature decisions in this area, even if the arguments currently presented are persuasive. There is a risk that by simply accepting the amendment in this form without thoroughly researching the position of comparable workers, there could be effects that we have not yet considered, some of which may be negative if they are not properly thought through. In examining this issue, the Government need to be sure about the number of British international civil servants and the number of potential categories of electors that it may be appropriate to provide with this right. Equally, we need to research whether there are other categories of person who would seek enfranchisement as a result of any loosening of the rules for these individuals.

In particular, we would need to consider whether we should expand the wider categories currently covered by Section 14 of the 1983 Act to include those categories of workers given special treatment by way of their status as UK civil servants working abroad in other comparable contexts. For example, the British Nationality Act 1981 has special rules in relation to the descendants of UK public servants working abroad. These rules apply, for example, to those who work for international organisations of which the UK is a member, which is the category that this amendment deals with. They also apply to wider categories of UK public servants who work for other comparable entities, particularly foreign Governments. As a result, there may or may not be a case for applying the effect of Section 14 to these wider categories rather than the more limited category identified by the amendment.

In dealing with the democratic rights of our subjects, we must ensure that we examine the matter in the round and not just make piecemeal changes of the sort before us today. I regret to say that the exercise needs more time than this Bill allows. By allowing the Government a proper amount of time to consider the issue, it will enable us to build a firmer evidence base about the advantages and disadvantages of permitting any extensions of franchise and then to consider the way forward on the basis of the responses received. I therefore suggest that the Ministry of Justice undertakes a project to look into these issues, which will be conducted over the summer. In the mean time, noble Lords may take comfort in the fact that the Government will keep the British international Civil Service updated on our progress. In view of our intention to research the issue properly, it would be more sensible to examine the results at the end of that piece of work before making any changes to the current regulations. I hope the noble Lord will agree to withdraw the amendment.

I have a question before the noble Lord responds to the debate. The Minister mentioned that the international Civil Service has been making representations. One of them happens to be one of my graduates, which is why I am familiar with the case. The Minister has indicated sympathy and said that there will be a study of the merits of the case and whether it should be extended; I am very grateful for that. What will happen if the Government find that there is merit in the case? The timescale means that it will not be in the Bill; what will the Government do?

If we conclude that it is appropriate to change, we will obviously bring something forward at the earliest available opportunity.

As I mentioned earlier, Bills to do with election law come few and far between, so the Government may need to think in a somewhat different way to deal with this, otherwise we may be waiting eight or 10 years for legislation.

The Minister will not be surprised to hear that I was disappointed by his response. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Brooke for his combination of support and history lesson—it was important to show the antecedents to these matters—and to my noble friend Lord Bates. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, can be tempted out of his shell with a little assurance on the financial and fiscal tax aspects. I will obviously recap what the Minister said. For those who think that 15 to 20 years is long enough for people who retire abroad, an eminent biologist says that there is someone born now who will live to be 200. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

The amendment is prompted by a particular electoral circumstance. It is not intended as an aspersion on Northern Ireland practice. It is prompted by a circumstance and intended to be proof against it. It is a fact of historical political experience both in Ireland and elsewhere that there have been occasions—rare but occasional—in our history when someone elected has changed parties after the election.

My amendment, in which I have neither emotional capital tied up nor any pride in its precise wording, is intended to protect the electoral process from the rare consequences of someone changing sides, under certain rules, although I have no further certainty about the amendment’s efficacy to achieve that objective. The Minister has been good enough to draw my attention to the problem created under the present wording of the Bill by the decision of not one but two parties to nominate the same candidate in the European parliamentary elections in Northern Ireland. That patently also complicates my amendment. Resolving that other complication must await the Government's announcement of how they will resolve the complication just stated in Clause 19.

I apologise if I have sounded somewhat Byzantine, but I beg to move.

I am grateful for the discussions that I have had with the noble Lord. If he would be good enough to withdraw his amendment, I should like to offer to take it away to consider it. Perhaps I may go a little further and invite him to meet my officials to discuss his amendment in the context of the clause as it stands. That is all I have to say about the amendment today.

Although Byzantine, I sought also to be brief. I am most grateful to the Minister for the brevity with which he has conveyed the Government’s invitation, which I am happy to take up. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

I know that noble Lords will be aware that, during earlier debate on this Bill in another place, my right honourable friend the Minister of State announced that the Government would bring forward amendments in this Committee to facilitate an historic shift in the system of electoral registration in Great Britain. The clauses that have been tabled for debate before this Committee by the Government are an important part of our approach to this issue. I will turn to them in a moment. Before I do so, I would like to briefly place them in context.

As noble Lords will no doubt agree, it is essential that all those who are eligible to vote are registered to do so. Those who are not registered are excluded from the democratic process and denied the right to participate. We must therefore always strive to ensure that the register is as comprehensive as is reasonably possible. This means doing all we can to ensure that those who are eligible to vote are registered to vote, which is a fundamental principle of electoral registration.

The other fundamental principle of electoral registration is accuracy. The register must be as accurate as reasonably possible, which means ensuring that only those who are eligible to vote are included in the register and that none of the information held about registered individuals is false. It is against the backdrop of these twin aims of comprehensiveness and accuracy that the Government have been considering the possibility of a move towards individual registration in Great Britain.

The Government believe that the proper way forward is to combine the implementation of individual registration on a carefully phased timetable with significant new measures to increase registration. The proposed timetable would see the provision of identifiers become compulsory for new registrations not before 2015, prior to which they will be collected on a voluntary basis. I will talk in more detail about the timetable in a moment, but before I do so, I emphasise that the Government intend to take all the steps they can between now and 2015, and beyond, to support the two fundamental principles of electoral registration; namely, comprehensiveness and accuracy.

We already have a number of proposals in train for how we can achieve this. We will pilot enhanced data- matching schemes under Clauses 22 and 23. These schemes will allow electoral registration officers to share data with other public bodies in order to maintain and update their registers. We will introduce secondary legislation to make it easier for electoral registration officers in areas with two tiers of local government to access information held by the higher tier. We are considering how we ensure that opportunities to register are made available to all sections of society. This will be increasingly important as we move towards a system of individual registration. The emphasis will increasingly be placed on individuals to take responsibility to register and vote, rather than putting the onus on a single member of a household, as under the current system.

I now turn to the detail of the proposals set out in the clauses. We need to introduce the change in a way that recognises the fact that this is a radical alteration to registration processes. It is a complex change, which will affect the more than 46 million people currently registered to vote, as well as the significant numbers not currently on the register. It will need to be implemented by more than 400 different EROs, working in different local authorities, in different parts of Great Britain, with different communities.

Because of the scale of this change, we must be sure that at every stage we are subjecting the reform to the proper degree of careful scrutiny.

On that very matter, my noble friend has talked about the vastness and scale of the change. Will he consider the position now in the House of Commons, given that this measure has been introduced in the Lords and, as I understand it, we will technically vote on it when the matter is considered at Report? It will go back to the House of Commons. It will not be subject to a Second Reading, a Committee stage or a Report stage; it will simply be considered at one stage in the House of Commons. Yet this is a huge power. From my point of view it is the central part of this legislation. My noble friend talks about scrutiny. There will be no proper scrutiny of this provision because there will not be the opportunity in the House of Commons for Members to discuss this area of the Bill in the detail in which I suggest it should be discussed. What is my noble friend’s response to the suggestion that scrutiny will be limited in that way?

This House will debate this issue, certainly in Committee and, I suspect, on Report. Of course, the House of Commons will debate this issue when the matter returns to it, as it must if these clauses get through. As my noble friend rightly says, these are new clauses introduced in this House. I concede that this is not the usual way of proceeding but, as my noble friend acknowledges, this is an important matter. The Government think this is the appropriate time to introduce these clauses to move towards individual registration, which, if these clauses are passed, will not happen for some years. If we miss this opportunity, individual registration—if that is the right thing to do—will not be in place for many years.

As regards the point that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has made, I said at Second Reading that it would have been helpful if we had at least seen the amendments in draft at that stage so that we had some idea of what we would be looking at. I think that my honourable friends in another place asked to see them when the Government made the concession at Report, or whenever it was, in the Commons. As I understand our procedures in Grand Committee, we can insert these government amendments only—we welcome them in part—if the entire Grand Committee agrees to them. If there are any objections—I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, will object to them—they cannot be included and they would then have to be offered by the Government at Report. Bearing that in mind, and I seek advice from the noble Lord—

I have to interrupt the noble Lord. The Chair has invited me to interrupt him and I must do so because, as I understand it, this is a rule of procedure. He knows that I would not otherwise interrupt his speech. The question has not yet been put from the Chair and this is not the time for debate. If I was more familiar with the procedure, I would not have allowed my noble friend to interrupt me in full flow, let alone the noble Lord, Lord Henley.

I will now intervene in the noble Lord’s speech because we are in Committee and the point I was going to make was that we have much greater freedom in Committee to debate in a much less formal manner; for example, by intervening when the Minister is speaking. If this amendment is not inserted in Committee and has to be brought in at Report, will the Government—I ask the noble Lord to consider this—be prepared to offer to recommit this one particular bit, which is a procedure that we can adopt, so that we can at least deal with it in a Committee style rather than a Report stage style in this House, despite the problems that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, mentioned in relation to another place?

Let us see how the debate goes. Perhaps we can come to a view either later this evening, if the Committee is prepared to sit later, or when we continue the debate on the next occasion we are lucky enough to meet together. For the moment, I would be grateful if I could speak just to the government amendments and then move the first one.

I was saying before I was interrupted that the Electoral Commission recognises the point that we are making, which is that the scale of this change is big. It has said that individual registration,

“would be a major change to the electoral registration system in Great Britain. There will need to be detailed planning and identification of key milestones to provide the basis for moving towards implementation of individual electoral registration over a number of years, including the delivery of public awareness campaigns during any transition to a new system. There will also need to be a real effort to make sure Electoral Registration Officers throughout Great Britain have the right tools to ensure all those who are entitled to be registered to vote are helped to do so”.

We agree with this analysis. I have already outlined the steps that we have taken, and are taking, to enhance the reach of the register. We can have a register that is both comprehensive and accurate, but we will deliver that only if we frame the process in a way that prepares the public for the transition to a new form of registration and do all that is in our power to ensure that registration rates do not fall—or we would have damaged the legitimacy of the electoral process and our democracy. We have brought forward amendments to put in place a statutory timetable for the introduction of individual registration; begin the rollout of measures to prepare both the public and the electoral system for that change; and put in place a series of tests that will be independently assessed by the Electoral Commission itself to ensure that the shift can be made only once the system is ready for it.

I know that there is concern among noble Lords about the timetable for the shift, which we propose should happen not before 2015 at the earliest. Let me address that point. Given the importance of safeguarding the electoral system against fraud, and the vital role that individual registration can play in achieving that, it is clearly understandable that noble Lords would be anxious to see progress made towards that end. However, as I have set out, a significant amount of work needs to be undertaken to ensure that the system is fully equipped to meet the challenges of such a shift. We know from experience in Northern Ireland that there is a real risk that numbers registered could decrease as a result of the move. Under individual registration many people will, of course, for the first time be responsible for their own registration. For all individuals, the requirement to provide additional personal information when registering will be new. We must ensure that the electorate have sufficient time to acclimatise to the new requirements.

The phased approach will enable us carefully to monitor progress at each stage, including using the commission’s annual progress reports to better ensure that registration rates can be maintained during the change. It will also allow us to develop and test new measures to drive up registration rates, working closely with registration officers and the commission to determine what works best. The specific timetable set out in the clauses delivers on the phased approach. It has been developed very carefully with due regard to the magnitude of the change and the risks involved. It allows time for the detailed results of the 2011 census—which will be available in 2012—to feed into any assessments of registration rates. Importantly, it also allows us to minimise any disruption to elections. The collection of personal identifiers will begin only after the next general election, which we know must be held by June 2010 at the latest.

Should the shift to compulsory provision of identifiers take place in 2015, it would take place after both the 2014 European Parliament elections and the spring 2015 elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We cannot, of course, know at this distance the timing of future general elections, but placing the potential change in this timeframe seeks to at least partially manage the risk of making a shift in the period immediately before a national or sub-national election. We regard this change as so important that we want, as far as possible, to investigate all the potential issues fully prior to the provision of identifiers becoming compulsory. The data-matching piloting provisions in the Bill are a key example of this. We intend to use the pilots to establish which public sector databases will be of most assistance to EROs in targeting people to be registered to vote. The alternative approach of rushing to implement without any evidence base would risk wasted investment.

I beg to move that the Committee do now adjourn to a date and time to be notified.