Clause 1 — Piloting Conduct at European and Local Elections

Part of Orders of the Day — European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill – in the House of Commons at 6:45 pm on 8 March 2004.

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Photo of David Heath David Heath Shadow Spokesperson (Home Affairs) 6:45, 8 March 2004

I excuse Andrew Bennett from what I am about to say because he has made a very important contribution to the debate, but I should say that I find this debate and the circumstances in which we are holding it profoundly depressing. The more I listened to the Minister, the more I felt that a measure of shabby expediency was being dressed up in matters of high electoral principle. I am afraid that that simply will not wash.

Setting aside for the moment the Minister's overruling the independent advice of the Electoral Commission—I shall return to that because it is absolutely crucial to our deliberations—I find particularly offensive the continuing misrepresentation of the commission's views by Ministers in this House, either directly or by partial quotation. During Question Time earlier today, I drew that point to the attention of Mr. Viggers, who answered questions on behalf of the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission. I also drew attention to the comments of the Leader of the House, who said that the Electoral Commission

"has said that we should go ahead with two schemes and, if we judge that there are sufficient resources and so on to enable four pilots to be held, that we should go ahead and hold those as well. That is exactly what it said."—[Hansard, 4 March 2004; Vol. 418, c. 1066.]

That is exactly what the Electoral Commission did not say. It said anything but that it wanted to go ahead in the other regions. It said that there were significant problems with doing so, and that it could not make a positive recommendation, as has repeatedly been pointed out.

There has been a process of partial quotation of the letter from Mr. Younger, the chairman of the Electoral Commission, to the Under-Secretary, most of which has been read out today. However, it is worth drawing attention to its opening sentence, which states:

"When we met earlier this week with you and other ministers, concern was expressed that the Commission's position on the pilot regions was being misinterpreted".