Clause 23 - Description of independent candidates
Electoral Administration Bill
6:00 pm
David Cairns (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Scotland Office; Inverclyde, Labour)
Mr. O'Hara, I am sorry. The evening is drawing on and I am at a loss to understand why we are having this particular debate.
Is the hon. Gentleman really saying that he fears that when someone goes into the polling station and takes a ballot paper, just seeing the words, ''John Smith: independent candidate against sustainable development'', completely out of context, will suddenly give the candidate a great advantage that he, as a representative of a political party that we heard today gets £50 million of taxpayers' funding, does not have?
Such a view presupposes that the individual, irrespective of their name and what appears on the ballot paper, has not been able to distribute literature throughout the constituency making their case and calling themselves what they will on that literature. We are talking about the description that appears on the ballot paper. Political parties can put those on; they can register up to five, whereas independents cannot. There is a question of equity. Are we saying to independents, ''Sorry, you cannot do that because it slightly inconveniences us''? Alternatively, are we telling them that they can do it because there is unlikely to be more than one Labour or Liberal Democrat candidate, but there might be more than one independent person standing? For both of those reasons—equity and avoiding confusion—independents should be allowed to put a description on the ballot paper. If somebody wishes to describe himself as an independent candidate against sustainable communities, and that is read as an attack on the position of another candidate, it is up to each of them to convince the electorate that he is right. Preventing people from describing themselves on ballot papers is not the way to go. That would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut.