Clause 5
Political Parties and Elections Bill
11:15 am
Pete Wishart (Spokesperson (Overseas Aid; Culture, Media & Sport; Ministry of Justice); Perth and North Perthshire, Scottish National Party)
It is a pleasure, Sir Nicholas, to serve under your chairmanship in this august Committee, and I look forward to the rest of the sittings that we will share together. The amendments are pretty straightforward and self-explanatory. I seek proper recognition from the Bill and the Electoral Commission that we are now in a multi-legislature, multi-party democracy throughout the United Kingdom. The amendment is about more than just this Parliament. We now have four legislatures in the United Kingdom and five parties in power. We have the majority Government in the House of Commons, the minority Scottish Nationalist party Government in Scotland, and coalitions in Wales and Northern Ireland. All of them have to be served by the Electoral Commission and all of them have to be properly recognised by this Bill. However, the Bill does not do that. It is Westminster-centric as usual and that has been recognised by the written submissions from electoral commissioners among others. If the Bill was just about this House, it would be absolutely fine. We have seven Members out of a total of 659. All the minority parties put together number some 28 Members of this House. To get one commissioner out of that number is very fair and generous; it is a very good deal. However, we are not in that situation.