Clause 2
Political Parties and Elections Bill
5:45 pm
David Howarth (Shadow Solicitor General, Ministry of Justice; Cambridge, Liberal Democrat)
Thank you for those comments, Mr. Cook. It will take me much less time than the hon. Member for Huntingdon to say what I have to say about the clause. He is right to worry about powers of entry and other details that we will discuss when we debate schedule 1, but we politicians have to bear it in mind that Parliament has imposed lots of requirements on other people. When it comes to imposing similar requirements on politicians themselves, people who were not concerned before suddenly become concerned, and we must be aware of what that looks like to the outside world. The key is that we should not make arbitrary exemptions for ourselves. The principles that we apply when regulating politics are the same as those that we apply to the regulation of anything else. I hope that when hon. Members make points that might sound self-interested, they will at least have the grace to concede that similar points can be made about other people’s civil liberties, not just their own.