Committee (5th Day)

Part of Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill – in the House of Lords at 5:54 pm on 15 December 2010.

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Photo of Lord McNally Lord McNally Deputy Leader of the House of Lords, The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, Liberal Democrat Leader in the House of Lords 5:54, 15 December 2010

My Lords, it is reassuring that the power of argument and eloquence still triumphs in this House.

Clause 6 and Schedule 9 to the Bill ensure that all permitted participants in the referendum that are not political parties are covered by the same regulations regarding loans as already apply to political parties that campaign in the referendum. The Bill does this by creating a new regime for the regulation of loans to permitted participants which closely reflects the rules that already govern loans made to political parties in Part 4A of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Part of this regime is the creation of 13 new offences applicable to those permitted participants in the referendum. Again, these offences replicate the offences that already apply to major political parties through Part 4A of the 2000 Act.

This amendment seeks to apply the Electoral Commission's new civil sanctions powers-they came into force by order on 1 December-so that they are available in relation to 12 of the 13 new offences created by the Bill. The civil sanctions regime was inserted into PPERA 2000 by the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009. It is intended to allow the Electoral Commission to apply sanctions that are appropriate to the nature of each contravention and to use new approaches to secure compliance with the law where appropriate rather than referring a case for criminal investigation. The civil sanctions include fixed monetary penalties, discretionary requirements, stop notices and enforcement undertakings.

It was not possible to prescribe the new loans offences that the Bill creates in the order so as to apply the civil sanctions regime to them on 1December. That is because the new loans offences have not yet been approved by Parliament and will not be approved until this Bill obtains Royal Assent. However, the order that came into force on 1December prescribes the existing offences regarding loans to political parties. This means that there would be a disparity between how political parties and other permitted participants who receive loans to fund their referendum campaigns could be sanctioned if we were not to apply the civil sanctions provisions to the new offences by making this amendment. Our amendment will ensure that civil sanctions powers are also available for the new loans offences and will close off this disparity. The result is that any permitted participant who commits a loans offence after Royal Assent could be subject to civil sanctions imposed by the Electoral Commission. I beg to move.