Schedule 1
Political Parties and Elections Bill
6:45 pm
David Howarth (Shadow Solicitor General, Ministry of Justice; Cambridge, Liberal Democrat)
The debate on these amendments comes back to the distinction, which I was trying to make in the previous debate, between the commission’s powers of inspection and its powers in respect of the investigation of criminal offences. The Government are now offering, in amendment No. 123, greater clarity in distinguishing between the two, making it clear that the powers laid out in schedule 1(1) may not be used as investigative powers when investigating a criminal offence. That clearly separates the two. It therefore follows that the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Huntingdon, which talk about the sum at issue—amendment No. 95, for example—are no longer relevant, because the inspection power is not to do with amounts of money at stake in respect of an offence, but with ensuring that people are complying with more general requirements. Nevertheless, his other points still apply.
If the Government still want there to be a power of entry for the purpose of inspection, they have to think through precisely how that is going to work. What the hon. Gentleman said about ensuring that constables are there, that the powers are clear and that officials of a civil regulator are not resisted with force is still pertinent. The Government need to think that through.
More generally, the Government need to think through what the purpose is of having a power of entry for an inspector. Precisely why do we need inspectors to have powers of entry and under what circumstances, when they are not investigating offences? This brings us back to the point that the hon. Gentleman made about the Electoral Commission’s not being entirely enthusiastic about having these powers and not seeing a great deal of benefit in them. If it is to have such powers, they need to be in more of a civil than a criminal context. If there were a clear link in the system between the failure to disclose a document following a reasonable request by the commission, and a power of entry at some point after that because of failure to comply, that could be justified. However, at the moment I see no link between the process for requesting disclosure and the power of entry, which seems to appear out of nowhere. I ask the Government to reconsider sub-paragraph (5). As the hon. Gentleman said, amendment No. 94 is a probing amendment; nevertheless, this aspect of the Bill needs to be reconsidered.