Further written evidence to be reported to the House
Political Parties and Elections Bill
2:00 pm
Hilary Stephenson: I am absolutely not a candidate. I give a cautious welcome to political commissioners in the sense of bringing in some first-hand expertise on how things work and perhaps improving the enforceability and practicality of some decisions. Obviously there is the need for public reassurance in such matters, too. We certainly welcome the discussion of donation and spending caps, which I assume we shall be asked about in more detail later. Our particular concern is the proposal to return to the trigger. It does not address the main issues that need to be dealt with in terms of transparency and a level playing field. It would deal only with candidate spending, not party spending, which is our main concern.
In summary, we welcome the focus on spending caps and donations. We would be worried about a move to reintroduce triggering. That was always uncertain, and it caused many problems for agents and volunteers. It is probably made worse in the current circumstances by the fact that we have almost continuous party campaigning for various elections nowadays—more than we used to have. Making the distinction between where one election ends and another starts is becoming increasingly unrealistic.