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6.15 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Howarth): This has been a very positive debate. Although there may have been slight echoes of dissent here and there, the general thrust of the Bill and its proposals have been welcomed by the whole House.
The measure is essential, particularly if, it must be conceded, we are to deal with new electoral systems, such as those for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh assembly and the European Parliament. As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) and the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) acknowledged, the Bill does not uniquely address that aspect. It deals with other problems which, as I think hon. Members accept, need to be addressed irrespective of views on proportional representation or any other electoral system. I assure hon. Members who do not support proportional representation for election to this House or anywhere else that there will be an opportunity in due course to consider whatever proposals the Jenkins commission makes on voting systems. The Bill concerns distinct issues relating specifically to the problems that have been mentioned in the debate.
The setting up of a register for political parties is sensible, concerning as it does the means to combat deliberate attempts cynically to mislead electors. We have heard many examples of that. I was going to say that I would hope to reassure the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) on the matter, but, on mature reflection, I am not sure whether anything that anybody said in the House could ever reassure him a great deal, such is the nature of his political approach. I shall return to the hon. Gentleman's comments.
I ought to spend a little time dealing with several of the issues that have been raised. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield mentioned the importance to the Westminster Parliament of the constituency link. I do not want to labour the point, but if he reads what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said in debates earlier this week and looks at the terms of reference of the Jenkins commission, he will--I hope--agree that we accept the important role of the constituency link in the House of Commons, and hope that, by whatever means we end up resolving the issue, it will be preserved.
The right hon. Gentleman seems to be on the edge of his seat, but, as a constituency Member myself, I reaffirm everything that the Secretary of State said. Not only is that link a source of a great deal of information that makes
us better at taking decisions in the House, but it means that those whom we represent in the Westminster Parliament know clearly who represents them because there is a defined geographical area that sends us here. Those points were well made by the right hon. Gentleman, and we accept them. Does he want to intervene?
Sir Norman Fowler:
The question that I wanted to ask was whether the Minister would therefore give an assurance now that if there is a referendum on proportional representation, Ministers will have absolute freedom to campaign in favour of the first-past-the-post system.
Mr. Howarth:
The right hon. Gentleman spent a long time in government himself, and knows that it would be premature for me to give any such assurance now. At the appropriate time, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet will make that decision, and when the matter is decided, we shall be able to enlighten the right hon. Gentleman. In the meantime, he must exercise his customary patience.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether registration would prevent parties from colluding to exploit the additional member system--a question which was also raised by others. Any party that wants to contest the list part of the elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh assembly or the Greater London assembly will need to be registered. The registrar will not be empowered to refuse a registration application merely because he believes the party to be a bogus one set up purely for the purpose of manipulating the electoral system.
However, any party set up as an "alter ego" party to try to win additional member seats would obviously be exposed by the media. That would become clear from the way in which it was campaigning, and I am sure that the voters would seek to punish it. Furthermore, the registrar would not register a supposedly new party if its name were too similar to that of an existing registered party.
The Under-Secretary of State in the other place, Lord Williams of Mostyn, as the right hon. Gentleman acknowledged, gave an assurance during the passage of the Government of Wales Bill through another place that the Labour party would not attempt to use collusion to deceive the electorate, and I hope that any responsible party would take the same view. No doubt such matters will be further debated in Committee, but it was important to get that point on the record now.
The right hon. Gentleman and others asked why there was no appeal against decisions by the registrar. It will be for the registrar to decide whether in his opinion a name does not meet the tests in clause 3. As has been acknowledged, if he is in any doubt, he will be able to refer for advice to the Speaker's Committee established under clause 10.
It is important to reiterate what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said--that, as part of the process, the registrar will examine the history of any political party, and how that may have led to the development or evolution of a name. For example, the relationship between the Liberal party and the Liberal Democrat party could be considered in that context--I would not like to predict the outcome, but it should be fairly obvious. The registrar would determine which was the successor party to the original Liberal party. I must admit that I do not envy him that task.
The process is not as sinister as the hon. Member for Ribble Valley made out. Perhaps, on reflection, he did not mean to make it sound sinister, but that is the impression that he may have created. I believe that the registrar will operate the system in a sensible way, and there is no reason to suspect any compromise of independence or any favouritism. We should wait and see how it works, but I am confident that a lot of thought went into the most appropriate methods. I am confident, because those methods work well in many other contexts.
Mr. Brady:
I apologise if I am pre-empting something that the Minister was about to deal with, but I am interested in the question raised by the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) about the legitimacy of calling oneself an independent Conservative, Labour or Liberal candidate. It is important that people should be able to do that. Does the Minister agree?
Mr. Howarth:
The hon. Gentleman is right; he did anticipate an issue that I intend to deal with later. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield made a number of points, and I shall try to cover the remainder of those first.
The right hon. Gentleman asked how misleading candidate descriptions are to be prevented. Any candidate standing on behalf of a registered party will require a certificate authorised by or on behalf of that party's registered nominating officer before the party's name or any form of words that voters are likely to associate with the registered party can be included on the ballot paper.
The right hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members also asked why the Bill did not deal with misleading names of candidates as well as of parties--names such as "The Bogus Roy Jenkins". The Bill does not deal with candidates' names, as has rightly been said, but, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, at the general election injunctions were successfully granted in the High Court against spoiler candidates using the same or a very similar name to stand against the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire(Sir N. Lyell), my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) and Rod Richards, the former Member for Clwyd, North-West.
Mr. Evans:
Is the Minister saying that for somebody to stand as an independent Labour candidate, whether at local elections or otherwise, he or she must seek permission from the leader of the Labour party to use the word "Labour" in that context?
Mr. Howarth:
I shall deal later with who is and who is not an independent candidate, but that is a separate issue. I am talking about names now.
The Bill gives protection to the names of registered parties, and the possibility of including the party's emblem on the ballot paper should reduce any confusion arising from the use of misleading candidates' names.
The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield, a little ungenerously, raised the possibility of emblems causing confusion and being used humorously. I think that emblems are a good thing. The hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) made a strong point about how the emblems
could help people whose first language was not English. I ask the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield to accept another point: emblems could be useful in helping people with poor vision. There is evidence from the general election that disabled people in general, but especially partially sighted people, sometimes had difficulty in voting. A well-placed emblem on the ballot paper would be easier for somebody with dim sight to make out than the name of a political party, so the emblem would be helpful.
The right hon. Gentleman asked what there was to prevent inconsistency in decisions between different returning officers about what is misleading. That is a valid and important question. Different decisions will indeed be possible, because it will be up to each returning officer to decide whether a candidate's description is misleading when it is not supported by a registered party.
However, by and large, the returning officers do their job well, and we expect them to make reasonable decisions. I do not therefore expect any great variation between decisions. All of us here have stood for election, so we know about the good sense of returning officers. They are often put under pressure by people such as ourselves, and they usually make reasonable decisions in line with common sense and the requirements of legislation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton) raised several points, and asked whether non-registered candidates would still be allowed to use party names on the ballot paper. He is right that the Bill will not prevent the continuation of so-called joke candidates with party descriptions, so long as, in the opinion of the returning officer, those would not lead voters to associate the candidate with a registered political party.
My hon. Friend also asked how the registrar of political parties would decide whether a proposed party name was offensive. That is up to the registrar to decide. If he is uncertain, he may seek advice from the Committee to be appointed by Madam Speaker under clause 10. Those are sensible arrangements. I do not want to be drawn into a debate with my hon. Friend as to what is and what is not offensive--first, because I detect some eagerness among hon. Members to get away tonight, and secondly because it might be slightly dangerous.
The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Russell)--part of whose speech greatly upset the hon. Member for New Forest, West--asked why the Bill should not contain provisions to allow parties to adopt all-women shortlists. The Government share the aim of increasing the representation of women and minority groups in Parliament and the devolved legislatures, but we do not believe that it would be possible or, indeed, appropriate to use the Bill to enable political parties to introduce measures such as all-women shortlists.
As has been made clear during discussions on the Scotland Bill, our legal advice is that, even if political parties were to be given a general exemption from the provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, all-women shortlists would still fall foul of the European Union equal treatment directive. We could not have used the Bill to overcome that difficulty even if we had wanted to. We hope that political parties will do all that they can within the existing legal framework to encourage women candidates and to ensure that their selection procedures are not inadvertently discriminatory. I hope that the House
will agree that the huge increase in the number of women Members of Parliament following the general election last year has improved the way in which we conduct business.
The hon. Member for Poole--I am about to damage his reputation, possibly beyond repair, and certainly in the eyes of the hon. Member for New Forest, West--made a typically thoughtful speech; I think that it was the second or third speech that I have heard him make this week. I apologise if I am damaging his prospects, but he asked some useful questions, including whether a party would be able to register variants of its name, such as Conservative and Unionist, and who would be able to use words such as "Unionist" in their party's name. The Bill provides for each party to register one principal name, with an option, as was said earlier, for a Welsh-language name. It already provides protection for variations in a party's name. For example, if the Conservative party is registered, we would not expect the registrar to allow another party to register its name as Tory, Scottish Conservative or Young Conservative, as those names are associated with the Conservative party.
There is nothing to prevent a party from advising the registrar of the alternative names or variants that it uses--although they would not be registered separately--which could be misleading if registered by another party. The test is whether, in the registrar's opinion, voters are likely to be confused. That means that more than one party could use the same word in its name--such as "Liberal" or "Unionist"--provided that it was clear that voters could distinguish between the parties; if there were any doubt, the Speaker's Committee would be able to advise. Again, the history of those political parties would be taken into account. I recognise that, because of the way in which the Conservative party has developed over the years, there is some difficulty in the use of the word "Unionist", but we would not in any way seek to exploit that.
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