My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions. They have made a number of points and I will try to respond to all of them. First, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, that I remember Andrew Pennington; I remember the case and I am really sorry. To the noble Lord, Lord Khan, I say that nothing changes, does it? The noble Lord and his family are still getting death threats, which is totally unacceptable in a country as democratic as ours.

I turn to some of the issues that have been brought up. The same things were said by all noble Lords in different ways. First, it has been a long time since campaign spending limits were last adjusted for inflation. This means that prices have risen over time and that the limits have effectively been reduced. Parliament anticipated this when the limits were set, which is why the legislation allows them to be adjusted to account for inflation.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, for giving me all the details—I am sorry that I do not have further details from across the country for mayoral elections, but I am sure I could find them if he wanted them—but the issue is that the spending power for printing, leaflets and transport, all of which are important in making sure that candidates can get their policies across to their communities in an election, is now the same as it was in the year 2000. That is what is important.

The Government have made those adjustments through a series of four statutory instruments, and so those spending limits are now restored in real terms. This is the last of those instruments. This is not an unusual exercise; successive Administrations of all political colours have previously uprated candidate spending limits.

Although the Government aim to comply with the Gould principle where possible, in this scenario we concluded that delaying the application of the provisions beyond this point would not be beneficial to candidates and agents. It was particularly important for us that we provided clarity on security expenses as a matter of urgency. The legislation has been drafted in such a way that the changes will apply as soon as practicably possible after the instrument has been approved by Parliament and prior to—as we were talking about—the May elections, which were also brought up.

All noble Lords strayed into the issue of donations. Let me make it clear that there is no change to the threshold at which checks on the permissibility of donations and donors are carried out. The level of those checks remains the same, exactly as it was, which is important. Accepting donations from foreign powers, for example, whether made directly or indirectly, is prohibited. There are strict rules prohibiting impermissible donations from entering into our political system through things such as proxy donors. That provides a safeguard against impermissible donations by the back door. Donations are monitored and controlled just the same as they always were.