Clause 1 - Piloting conduct at European
European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill
10:15 am
Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Shipley, Labour)
The processes to avoid fraud are properly dealt with in the Bill proper. We shall come to them in later clauses. I confirm, again, that we envisage the main order being the headline outlining the regions or nations that will be selected for piloting, and whether the pilot is to be all postal, or by electronic voting and so forth. That has not occurred with local piloting under previous enactments. There was a lot of detail in the second piloting order—such
as appendices, the forms of nomination papers and requirements on the returning officers to publish statements of persons nominated—that we would not necessarily want to subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, as they could be exceptionally weighty tomes.
It is a concession that we should have a separate process to allow an opportunity to debate not just the Bill but the main order, so that all hon. Members can see—having gone through the process of consulting the Electoral Commission and considering the Secretary of State's decision as to which regions and nations should be eligible—that those matters will be contained in it.