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5.13 pm
Mr. Bob Russell (Colchester): I should like, at the outset, to offer the apologies of my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), who has had to return to his constituency because his son has been taken to hospital. I am pleased to say that he is now recovering.
It is difficult to see how any democrat could object to the principles behind the Bill. It is obvious that the details must be discussed, but there is nothing of substance to which we can object. The Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill, which we believe will allow political parties to register and protect their names and logos. My party, above all others, has reason to support such legislation.
The Bill relates also to the proportional systems that will be used for elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh assembly and the European Parliament next year, and it will allow registered parties to provide lists of candidates. I agree to some extent with the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) in that it is disappointing that voters in those elections will not be able to select candidates from within the party list or across the parties, but the Liberal Democrats nevertheless welcome the new systems as an improvement on the unfair first-past-the-post system. We look forward to seeing further improvements.
It is pleasing to see that the Bill extends to local government elections, although they will use first past the post. The debate so far has concentrated on Westminster, but I believe that local government will also benefit greatly from the proposals. Elections to this place will also use first past the post. Let us hope that the experience of using fairer voting systems in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Europe will encourage people to vote in the promised referendum to change the system that is used here.
The use of the registrar of companies to avoid creating a separate registrar of political parties is appropriate, but the Bill leaves to local returning officers the important decision whether a candidate not representing a registered
party can use a description on the ballot paper. Unlike the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton), I shall not give an exhaustive list, but we have heard of and seen such candidates. I wonder whether they help the democratic process--although they certainly liven things up. The arrangement is likely to lead to inconsistent use of names on ballot papers in different parts of the country and will almost certainly cause disputes and legal action. As the Bill progresses, I hope that those matters can be examined afresh and, perhaps, resolved.
The Liberal Democrats have two particular reasons for welcoming the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) knows only too well the problem caused by candidates using misleading names. I do not think that any democrat would approve of what happened in my hon. Friend's constituency. My hon. Friend stood as the Liberal Democrat candidate in the 1994 European elections for the seat of Devon and East Plymouth and lost to a Conservative candidate by 800 votes. A previously unknown candidate stood as a Literal Democrat and got 10,000 votes.
I think that hon. Members will agree that it is extremely unlikely that 10,000 people chose to vote for a candidate who had done no campaigning and had no published principles. The Liberal Democrats were thus deprived of our third Member of the European Parliament. However, it was good to see my hon. Friend go on to defeat the Conservative Member of Parliament at the general election and win a seat in the House--Europe's loss is our gain.
The same Literal Democrat candidate who defeated my hon. Friend in Devon almost cost my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) his seat. At the 1997 general election, my hon. Friend won by an impressive two votes. A court later declared the result null and void and my hon. Friend went on to win a by-election this year with one of the largest majorities in Parliament--there may be a moral in that story. The Literal Democrat from Devon stood in Winchester in 1997 as the Liberal Democrat Top Choice for Parliament and won 640 votes--most of which were almost certainly intended for my hon. Friend.
The Bill would not allow parties with names similar to registered parties to register, but there may be confusion when unregistered candidates seek to use names similar to those of registered parties. That needs to be clarified. The Bill does not deal with the problem of candidates using a name that is likely to confuse voters. We have already heard several examples of confusion deliberately caused by candidates. Each involved parliamentary elections. There is only one Andrew Mackinlay, but as has been pointed out there have been several Margaret Thatchers and Roy Jenkins. Such confusion is not dealt with in the Bill.
The Bill would not prevent candidates from using terms that may cause confusion with registered parties in their election literature; it regulates only the use of names on the ballot paper. However, confusion occurs not just in parliamentary elections, but in local elections. Two years ago, in the borough of Colchester, four candidates stood as Conservatives in a deliberate attempt to undermine the Conservative party campaign.
Mr. Straw:
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, the Bill applies to local government elections, just as it applies to national elections.
Mr. Russell:
I welcome that clarification. The example that I shall give may have cost the Conservatives control of Essex county council, for which a by-election is taking place today. At the county council elections last year, a rogue Conservative--I think that Conservative Members will agree with that term--stood, and split the vote, and a Liberal Democrat took the seat. With Essex county council being finely balanced, the result of today's by-election could well alter the political control of the council.
It was expected that the Bill would include provisions on the funding of political parties. We support the Home Secretary's decision to await the report of the Neill committee before such legislation is introduced.
We welcome the use of party emblems on the ballot paper and the fact that Welsh parties will be able to register both a Welsh and an English name and to use both on the ballot paper. Registered parties should also be allowed to register regional variations of emblems to allow bilingual emblems in Wales and, for example, to allow parties in Scotland to have a different emblem from their emblem in another part of the UK. That may be useful for the Conservatives north of the border.
Can the Home Secretary tell us whether the emblems will be printed in the party colours? If so, perhaps there could be variations in tone to indicate where candidates stood in the various political parties, especially under the list system. I congratulate the person who designed the ballot paper on the good sense and humour that it reflects--the good sense to put the Liberal Democrat candidate at the top and the Conservative at the bottom. Typically for new Labour, its candidate has a hyphenated name. The Conservative emblem seems to be flopping over more than usual--misrepresentation?
Mr. Sanders:
It is leaning too far to the right.
Mr. Russell:
Perhaps the Conservative emblem is up to date.
Another issue that is not covered in the Bill is the gender balancing of candidates on lists in proportional systems. Liberal Democrats are using a system known as zipping for the European elections; across the UK, half of the Liberal Democrat lists will be headed by a man and half by a woman. That is equality. On each list, men and women will alternate. The gender at the top of each list has been chosen according to electoral prospect, which should ensure that one half of Liberal Democrat MEPs are women. I should have thought that the Government would welcome that.
A system of gender balance was agreed with Labour in November 1995 for elections to the Scottish Parliament but, because of the legal uncertainties and the lack of exemption from sex discrimination legislation in the Scotland Bill, it is unlikely to go ahead.
Legal opinion on gender balance is inconclusive. We had, therefore, hoped that the Bill would include a widening of the existing exemptions under sex discrimination legislation to include party lists in elections under the proportional representation system. The Government seem reluctant to do that, despite the 1995
electoral agreement between Labour and the Liberal Democrats in Scotland. It would be possible to exempt political parties only for the first proportional elections, to give women a good opportunity to achieve fair representation.
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