TUESDAY 23 JUNE 1998

MR DAVID GARDNER, MR MIKE PENN, THE RT HON THE LORD PARKINSON AND MR CHRIS RENNARD

  460. What about the number of signatures to support the candidate? You do not seem to be in favour of it being increased.
  (Lord Parkinson) I think we are pretty relaxed about that. What is it at the moment? Ten does not seem very many. I think I would like to see a small increase in that plus an increase in the deposit and you would find then people would think very carefully about whether they choose to stand. I do not think people should just stand for the hell of it and for fun to confuse people. I have had a candidate against me who had exactly the same name but had the initial A. I will not tell you which party he was representing but we had quite a number of anguished telephone calls—I will tell you the party—saying, "I have just voted Communist for the first time in my life." His name was Parkinson and his initial was A. I think people who call themselves Sir Nicholas Lyell is something we should stamp on and I am glad we are.

  461. It is a good job it was not M Parkinson.
  (Mr Rennard) I disagree a little with my colleagues on this to add variety to the proceedings. I do not think the issue of frivolous candidacy is terribly widespread. There are not too many people standing at council level or Parliamentary level. It is a problem that is more common at Parliamentary by-elections and I think it will be more significant at European elections where in particular the entitlement to free post will give someone access to a free delivery of three million leaflets. It will suddenly become a very attractive proposition for commercial organisations to stand if they get a three million free delivery. We saw in by-elections like Christchurch the Buy the Daily Sport Party standing and the Alfred Chicken Party standing promoting a computer game. I think it will be a problem at the European level but the deposit would not actually deal with this at the European level and therefore something has to be done about signatories and I would suggest at European level something more like 200 signatures would be appropriate and I think there is also a case for reform of the nomination form. A lot of people sign the form as it is at the minute to the standard as it was designed in the last century and one of the common abuses of the nomination form is people sign before the candidate's description is completed. That technically invalidates the form but it is very hard to prove that and the nomination is accepted at the time and it is only afterwards you can do this and we have reason to believe in relation to some of the fraudulent Literal Democrat Liberal Democrats that applied in the past and also we understand occasionally for National Front candidates, people have been able to stand by completing the form without a description. They do not know quite who they are nominating but they think they are nominating someone from a mainstream party and afterwards the description National Front is applied on the form. I think the form should be changed so it is absolutely explicit: "I understand XXX of such and such a description is standing and has my support." At the minute you do not have to support them. I think that will reduce the problem but still make it difficult. I do not think there is a case for increasing the deposit, certainly not unless you altered the share of vote required. When the deposit was last increased in 1983 from £150 to £500 the share required to retain your deposit was reduced from 12.5 to 5. If you increased the £500 now there would be a case for reducing that 5 per cent further. It is not particular in my party's interest but if you look at a legitimate party, I think we would all agree that the Green Party is a legitimate party with a right to stand candidates, they stood in 273 seats in the general election and lost every single deposit in every seat and it cost them £126,000 for the privilege of standing. I do not think it would be right to say we should make it £2,000 or £1,000 and force the Green Party to pay quarter of a million or half a million pounds just for the right of standing. In terms of the marginal cost of these candidates standing, there is no extra real cost. The ballot paper may be one inch longer because you have got an extra candidate but the presiding officer is there for the same number of hours and in relation to free post delivery whilst these leaflets can be delivered separately very often the post office is delivering them together so I think there is a case for the Home Office negotiating more toughly with the post office about arranging to deliver election addresses. Usually these candidates are not using free post services in any event so I do not think there is a significant case for increasing the deposit certainly not without also reducing the threshold on which you retain it.
  (Mr Gardner) The one area where proliferation of candidates is a clear problem is in terms of the Broadcasting Act as it applies in constituencies. Whereas in the past regional television and local radio would be able to do a lot of in-depth and very useful features on constituencies featuring the candidates, now with the proliferation of candidates they do find that increasingly difficult because the fringe candidates are understandably reluctant to forego their right of appearance.

  462. The Labour Party supported the reduction of the age of candidacy from 21 to 18 so that people are eligible to stand at that age. What is the view of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on that?
  (Mr Rennard) I certainly think it is inconsistent to be able to vote but not stand at 18 so certainly the age of candidature should be lowered. Whilst it is not a manifesto commitment of the Liberal Democrats we take the basic view that if 16 is now becoming the age of maturity for all sorts of things (including what was decided yesterday) it seems to me rather wrong that you should not also be able to vote at 16.

  463. Lord Parkinson?
  (Lord Parkinson) This is a purely personal view. I actually think that 18 is a little bit young to be taking decisions about the level of tax that people should pay and the sorts of services that people ought to have. And I also think that at 18 most people ought to have something better to do than actually be local councillors! I think they should be focusing on preparing themselves for their careers rather than running the local council and so I would not be in favour of anything that encourages people to give up their chance of further education and stand for the local council because it would be very difficult to combine the two. On the whole I think the present arrangement works quite well and I support it.

  464. Mr Rennard, you were not very keen on the deposit being raised. You mentioned the Green Party and of course the remedy is that Green Party candidates get more votes and save their deposits. What do you think of the argument that outright racist candidates exploit the present system because the deposit is quite low whereas of course a higher deposit would discourage them? Would that not be useful for the democratic process?
  (Mr Rennard) I think anything that discourages fascist candidates would be a good thing but it is their democratic right.

  465. I don't challenge that. It is a question of whether a low deposit or no deposit actually encourages them.
  (Mr Rennard) I do not think a high deposit would prevent them from standing locally whereas I do think there should be some reform of the nomination papers that I outlined before. A lot of them do not know who these people are and I have evidence that the nomination forms are signed when the description is blank and the description is added later and this is how candidates for the National Front have stood in the past and if the form were to be revised in such a way to prevent that happening and an increased number of signatures were required I think that would be far more effective.

  466. I would be right, would I not, in saying that as far as the parties we are talking about, the racist gangster parties who want to turn Britain into a prison state are concerned, they would not want a higher deposit?
  (Mr Rennard) I am sure they would not.

  467. Very quickly on names and descriptions. The Home Office view on the question of confusing names—and I do not think it is referring to Mr A Parkinson but certainly to the Sir Nicholas Lyells and Alice Mahons—is that the current state of the law is that the recent cases have actually solved that problem. Do you agree with that?
  (Mr Gardner) No. We certainly would not agree with that. When you say the current law, you mean the Registration of Parties Bill?

  468. Names of candidates not descriptions, I am coming on to descriptions of parties, but the ability to put yourself up with a confusing name.
  (Mr Gardner) The current law relies on the political parties being able to take a case to seek an injunction. The returning officers, quite rightly, are very reluctant to use their powers to reject a nomination so like with the Alice Mahon case last time we had at considerable expense to take a case to court and obviously that facility is not available to every party, so we do not believe it is adequately addressed.

  469. Is that the view of the other parties too?
  (Lord Parkinson) Yes, in fact there was an attempt by one of Sir Nicholas Lyell's opponents to have the cost of his action included in his election expenses which seemed to me very harsh. I thought what he was doing was entirely right as Alice Mahon was. I do think that the law needs to be tightened up so that can be stopped.

  470. Anything to add on that?
  (Mr Rennard) No.

  471. On descriptions, which of course is being dealt with under the Registration of Political Parties Bill, do you think it will be sufficiently clear under this Bill to prevent parties that try to mislead voters? Do you think this will be enough to stop that happening?
  (Mr Rennard) Not necessarily is what I would say and it will leave the discretion to returning officers. As we discovered in various legal battles which all the parties were involved in over nominations at the time of the last general election the discretion of returning officers and having to go to court is a very cumbersome and very difficult process. I am not sure that will be dealt with in further strong guidance to returning officers and I think it ought to be toughened up somewhat in the legislation.
  (Lord Parkinson) We support the principle of the Bill. We think it needs amending and improving in various areas but we support the principle.
  (Mr Gardner) I broadly concur with my colleagues. Obviously we strongly support the Bill, it is very welcome and I think it will deal with most abuses but it does put an awful onus on the returning officers and the registrar of political parties. We have asked for further considerations in terms of the operation of the Bill. We think there will need to be very clear guidelines to ensure that we do not get continuous litigation at every election.

  472. Two particular points have come up in the Bill—the Committee stage is going on concurrently with this Committee—one is whether it should be acceptable for candidates still to be called Independent Conservative or Real Labour, in other words for those names to be useable by the parties if they are qualified and the other is the fact that the Bill only refers to ballot papers so it would still theoretically be possible for somebody to describe themselves in their electoral literature as a Literal Democrat even though in the ballot paper it would be illegal to use that description.
  (Mr Rennard) If there is a way of enforcing this beyond the ballot paper and the list of candidates nominated at the polling stations, we would obviously welcome this. It would be wrong for somebody to describe themselves as a Liberal Democrat, perhaps headed Focus, perhaps with a photograph of Paddy Ashdown and be the Literal Democrat and confuse people, as happened in Devon. If there was a way of doing it we would certainly welcome it. I happen to think that probably all the main political parties ought to be entitled to some protection of their description and that would mean no other candidates from any other party or any other individual should be able to describe themselves as Conservative, Labour or Liberal, with the possible exception if somebody wanted to put the word "independent" before that. I think you might well argue someone like John Brown in Winchester probably had a right to stand as an Independent Conservative but would not have had a right to stand as a Conservative against the official Conservative Party candidate. If somebody wants to use the title and it is regarded as an accurate title depicting a political disposition but not the candidate of that political party, then they must have the word "independent" before Conservative, Liberal or Labour.
  (Mr Gardner) I would concur with that. We would not want to stop genuine people who broadly support a party but wish to stand against the party so long as from their description it is clear to voters that they are not the official candidate.

  473. Thank you very much. Just one final point before we wind up. Are there any issues relating to fraud and electoral abuse or impropriety that have not been raised this morning to which we should have been giving attention?
  (Mr Rennard) Northern Ireland is outside your remit. That is a much more serious concern. I do not think the issues of impersonation are terribly great as a problem on the mainland but certainly they are in Northern Ireland.
  (Mr Gardner) I think the Labour Party has come to the view that proxy votes for domestic voters may be outdated and may not be necessary now. There is plenty of evidence on this that this is far more open to abuse than postal votes or voting in person and I think there is a strong case for re-examining the use of proxy votes at least for domestic voters. Obviously it is still needed for overseas and Service voters.

  474. Do you agree with that Lord Parkinson and the Liberal Democrats?
  (Lord Parkinson) Yes. One very trivial matter is this question of tellers. The status of tellers appears to depend very much on the whim of the returning officer. It causes friction every election day when you have some returning officers who are more strict than others. I think it would be useful if there were simple guidelines. It is a very small point.

  475. Is everybody happy on that point?
  (Mr Gardner) There is a code of practice but it is not uniformly operated. Again it is an issue where I think the electoral commission could carry some authority.

  Chairman: You got it in. Well, gentlemen, Mr Rennard, Lord Parkinson, Mr Gardner, thank you very much for coming. The session is closed.