Clause 8
Political Parties and Elections Bill
12:00 pm
Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Minister, Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform; Huntingdon, Conservative)
Thank you, Sir Nicholas, and the answer to that is “barely”. I apologise for my lateness.
Clause 8 is entirely unacceptable in almost every respect. It is an example of needless, ill thought through provisions at their worst. Given the varied issues covered by the clause, we were surprised at the lump grouping of amendments. Furthermore, given that significant issues go not only to the context of the clause, but to the sense of the clause itself, we did not expect the stand part debate to be included in the grouping. That has not made it easy to discuss the clause in a coherent fashion.