Local Government Bill [H.L.]

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 7:30 pm on 9 March 2000.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Lord Whitty Lord Whitty Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions) 7:30, 9 March 2000

My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Baroness has refrained from being inflammatory. The amendment is a nice try, but we are discussing elections in a different context. There is a long tradition of local government rules which do not include free mail shots. The elections of mayors under the Bill will be local government elections. Admittedly they will be of a special and novel kind and we expect that special electoral rules will need to apply. That is why we are preparing a further consultation paper in the regulation of mayoral elections.

As I stand at the Dispatch Box, I am not convinced of the need to prescribe free mail shots within those regulations, but the consultation will proceed. Of course, the House having accepted the provisions within the Representation of the People Bill, which allows for the experiment on free mail shots for local elections that is being conducted in Watford, we have the ability legislatively to provide for that in certain circumstances.

Rather than put anything on the face of the Bill which I must strongly oppose, I believe that we should leave the matter to consultation and to the possibility that at some future date we might move down that road. However, I suspect that were we to do so, the view would not be that we should provide the full parliamentary mail shot. We might have to have a more compromise position of the kind referred to, if not the actual outcome, in our discussions on the provisions of the GLA Act.

I am straying too far into that territory and I hope that the noble Baroness will not pursue the amendment tonight.