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Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, in drafting these provisions have the Government discovered whether criminal sanctions in the transfer of residential property are applied in any other jurisdictions?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, as the noble Baroness knows better than I, the distinction between civil and criminal law in other jurisdictions is a little more blurred than in this country, but certainly sanctions are applied in other regimes.
The final point on which I wish to touch is property in low value, low demand areas. Concern was expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, my noble friend Lady Gould and others about the effect on low value properties and whether they would come to the market. We have made it clear that we are prepared to consider measures where the seller's pack requirements would cause difficulty in particular areas or with particular types of property. We are preparing a consultation paper which will set out a number of measures that we might consider.
Under the Bill there is a possibility of having different instructions for different types of property. However, our research hitherto has shown that sellers' packs would offer benefits in precisely those low value areas about which people are concerned. As noble Lords have said, we must avoid the question of a two-tier market and of stigmatising properties in areas of declining demand and low value. That is quite a difficult area. However, there is the possibility under the Bill to provide separately for those areas.
Many points have been made tonight. Were we to have a normal process for the Bill, some could be explored in later stages. Many points misunderstand the benefit of this process and none provides a better solution to what, almost everyone is agreed, is the present problem with the housing market. Our proposals go some significant way to easing the pressure on the buying chain and will thereby bring some comfort and financial and time benefit to those engaged in the market. We recognise that other noble Lords think differently.
The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, referred, somewhat delphically to particular contingencies which might arise. They no doubt would be dealt with either within or without this Chamber. We may have to deal with those matters. However, despite the rather wide-ranging barrage of criticism of Part 1 of the Bill, no one has proposed anything better.
We are convinced that it is sensible to take the legislation forward. We shall consider how to deal with the matter at later stages. I very much welcomed the wide and heartfelt support for Part 2 of the Bill.
Lord Bowness: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, can he deal with the point raised by my noble friend Lord Caithness and, indeed, myself: what is the envisaged shelf life of the seller's pack and the home condition report--six months, one year or has it statutory immortality?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, none of us has statutory immortality. We are not proposing that the seller's pack should be required to be renewed. The only items likely to have limited shelf life are the home conditions report and possibly, in certain circumstances, replies to local searches. Since the home conditions report does not contain a valuation, and the question of a change in the market does not apply, and in most cases the physical nature of the property will not significantly have changed within a period that it is likely to be on the market, we are therefore not statutorily requiring renewal of the home conditions report. Should the seller decide that he needs to update that information or if the information is sufficiently old for buyers to be somewhat put off by the age of it, then clearly the buyer and his professional advisers might think it sensible to provide an updated report. But it does not seem sensible for us to put that in the statute.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, he said three times that no one in the Chamber has come up with anything better than the provisions. Will he accept that it is the job of government to produce a Bill that makes things better? Does he further accept that he has not had a single speaker in this Second Reading debate supporting the proposals in Part 1 of the Bill?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I certainly accept the noble Lord's description of the debate. I would, however, say that there are a wide range of people out there, including the Consumers' Association, many professions, and the majority of people we consulted in our various surveys who recognise the provisions as an improvement. There may be other improvements which can also be made. Indeed, we are pursuing some of them. We believe that this is an improvement. Although the House, as constituted today, does not accept that argument, we believe that we have support out there. We can make this work, and work to the benefit of both buyers and sellers.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
Election Publications Bill [H.L.]
11.19 p.m.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
The circumstances that have given rise to this three-clause Bill are unusual and unexpected. The House will recall that in the previous Session we enacted what is now the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Following consultation with the main political parties, the substantial part of that Act was brought into force on 16th February. For reasons which I shall explain, we now need to suspend the commencement of those provisions of the Act relating to the imprint on election material. That is the one and only purpose of the Bill.
A number of your Lordships have, at one time or other, shared with me the privilege of seeking election to the other place. They will be familiar with a long-standing provision, in Section 110 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, requiring the printer's and publisher's name and address to appear on election publications.
In taking forward the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill, we made a number of changes. First, we amended Section 110 itself. We believed, and still believe, that what I shall term the "old Section 110" was not entirely satisfactory. There was some uncertainty about who was the "publisher" of an election leaflet or poster. The provision did not readily operate in the case of material in a non-print format, such as videos and websites. Secondly, the provision did not apply to national advertising promoting a party rather than the individual candidate. It was one of the central purposes of the Bill to bring national party expenditure under control.
Each of those points was addressed in the Act as passed. Paragraph 14 of Schedule 18 to the Act substituted a new Section 110 of the 1983 Act. It replaced a requirement to name the publisher with a requirement to identify the promoter--that is, the person who caused the material to be published--and the person on behalf of whom the material was being published; that is, the candidate or third party as the case may be. In addition to the new Section 110 of the 1983 Act, Section 143 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act introduced similar imprint requirements in respect of national election material. To complete the picture, although it is not directly relevant to this Bill, Section 126 of the Act also introduced imprint requirements in respect of referendum material. Those requirements, too, are in the same terms as the revised Section 110.
In December last year, we consulted the main political parties and the Electoral Commission on the commencement timetable for the Act and, in
particular, on those provisions amending the Representation of the People Act 1983. The view was then taken that a number of the amendments to the 1983 Act should be deferred until 1st July so as to allow the parties sufficient time to familiarise both themselves and their prospective candidates with the various changes. But we felt that some of the other provisions, including the Section 110, should be brought into force as soon as possible as part of the package needed for applying the new expenditure control provisions. None of those consulted raised any difficulty in that regard. A commencement order was duly made on 29th January. Among other things the order brought the new Section 110 of the Representation of the People Act and Section 143 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, together with a number of other provisions, into force on 16th February.Now I come to why we are bringing forward this short Bill. With the benefit of hindsight, the commencement of these two provisions--Section 143 of the Act and the revised Section 110 of the 1983 Act--was premature. By 16th February, parties and prospective candidates were already gearing themselves up for the county council elections on 3rd May and, no doubt, a possible early general election. Many candidates and local parties were either unpacking old campaign literature from their constituency party cellars or sending off to the printers new material for use during the forthcoming campaign or campaigns. Much, if not all, of this material would have had the old "printer and publisher" imprint on it rather than the details now required by the new Section 110. The same story applied to national material which, until February, only had to bear the name and address of the printer, in accordance with an 1869 statute.
As a result, we are faced with the prospect of going into the forthcoming elections with all the main parties, together with thousands of candidates up and down the country, having large stocks of election publications which do not comply with the new imprint requirements. In theory, it would be open for the parties and their candidates to pulp all this material and start again. But I do not believe--and it is clear that the political parties do not believe--that that is a realistic or practical option. The only alternative is primary legislation, and hence this Bill.
While the problem is a significant one for the parties, the proposed remedy is relatively simple and I can explain briefly the thrust of the Bill. Clause 1 suspends the commencement of both Section 143 of the 2000 Act and the new Section 110 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. These two provisions are not repealed, but they are deemed not to have come into force. The natural corollary of this is that the status quo, as at 16th February of this year, is restored. To that end, the old Section 110 is reactivated.
Clause 2 enables Section 143 of the 2000 Act and the new Section 110 of the 1983 Act to be re-commenced by order. Given the history of these provisions, it clearly would not be sensible to do this for a period of
months. And in any event, we would wish to consult both with the Electoral Commission and the political parties before any decision is taken.Clause 3, as well as containing the usual Short Title and extent provisions, includes a saving for any election publication which complies with the new Section 110. The saving will apply during the period beginning 16th February 2001 and ending with the date on which the new Section 110 is brought back into force. In effect, during this "continuation period", local material which complies either with the old or with the new Section 110 would be lawful. It clearly would not be right to penalise any person who, in the period since 16th February, had meticulously arranged matters so as to be able to comply with the new imprint requirements.
It is unfortunate that we have to legislate on this matter a mere four months after the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill received Royal Assent. In doing so, however, we are responding to representations from the two parties opposite, as well as from my own party. The Electoral Commission has also expressed sympathy for the predicament which parties and candidates alike now face.
I believe that in these circumstances the Bill has all-party support and that noble Lords will understand and accept the need to secure its swift passage. Indeed, while not wishing to curtail legitimate debate, I am merely stating the obvious if I say that this Bill can reach the statute book quickly and therefore achieve its purpose only if there is co-operation from all sides of the House. Nominations for the local elections close on 3rd April and both candidates and parties need to know where they stand as soon as possible. To this end, I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.--(Lord Davies of Oldham).
11.29 p.m.
Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, one of the catch phrases of Oliver Hardy, in his exchanges with Stan Laurel, must be used in the Home Office more often than in any other Whitehall department. It is, of course, "Here's another fine mess you've got me into".
When the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill was going through this House, the Government moved 665 amendments. One of them, as the Minister said, altered the familiar imprint which all of us whose lives have depended upon elections know so well.
The Home Office never consulted the political parties about this particular change and did not advise the parties of its view of the change until 1st March, some time after the commencement order made it law. The amendment to the Bill which brought in this provision was never discussed at all in the other place because of the operation of the guillotine.
The Home Office guidance of 1st March, a couple of weeks after the provision became law, differed slightly from the advice that my party had received. We can all
live with that, but we should have been told it before the provisions were brought into force by the commencement order.As the Minister said, we are in a situation where all the main parties are now in breach of the law and stand to waste millions of pounds on scrapping the tons of pre-printed material stacked up for the council elections and for the general election--which, I think we can assume from the way in which this measure is being handled and the Motion that we passed earlier today, will definitely be on 3rd May, although I am not asking the Minister to comment on that.
If we pass this measure, I suppose that a small forest of trees will be saved from being turned directly into waste paper. So, in that sense, it is an environmental measure--although I do not think that even this Government would have the cheek to claim it as such.
We can all understand how it happened, but we should recognise that we, the political activists, are the only people who can pass our own "excuse me" Act and secure our own collective immunity from ignorance of the law. Small businesses struggling under the burden of regulations will view us with envy.
The message should be quite plain: there is too much new legislation for anyone to absorb--and nowhere more than in the Home Office. A dozen Acts of Parliament last year; already six Home Office Bills in this truncated Session; two new Second Readings this week and another one on Monday.
I make no apology for making these points because I made them in the debate on the Bill when we discussed the amendment under consideration now. I said:
- "The fact that these huge changes have been made to a comparatively simple part of the Bill emphasises part of the Home Office's problem this year; it has had too many Bills. It has not been able to draft them properly".--[Official Report, 18/10/00; col. 1144.]
The Minister mentioned the question of imprints on websites and e-mail, which were also part of the Bill. These are subject to regulations and were supposed last October to be urgent. But I understand that nothing has happened. It would be helpful if the noble Lord could tell us, either today or in writing, whether websites will have to have imprints as anticipated in the coming elections--council or otherwise--and, if so, when we will see the necessary regulations.
I made the point in October that we would need clear regulations and guidance well before the council elections, even if there was not a general election, but I do not think that we have seen anything about them as yet. Many more websites will be used by candidates in this general election. Some of us, including me, had websites at the last election, but more will no doubt have them, and much better ones, this time. The matter was described as urgent in October by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, who was taking the provision through, and of course it is all the more urgent now.
This is a nasty little mess, but the Bill is required in order to get us out of it.
11.34 p.m.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, last Saturday morning, when I was doing my usual round delivering party literature to my neighbours, it did not occur to me--no doubt it should have done--to check the imprint. I now realise that I may well have been participating in a criminal offence.
Be that as it may, this is an interesting Bill. I am familiar, as we all are, with Acts that contain provision for commencement orders. This is the first occasion on which I have come across a measure that contains a "de-commencement" order.
The noble Lord, Lord Cope, referred to the fact that this is an environmental Bill in that it saves vast quantities of newsprint from having to be pulped--a point with which I am sure we all agree. My party has always been very keen on protection of the environment. For that reason, if for no other, I am happy on behalf of my party to welcome the Bill.
11.36 p.m.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful for those responses from the noble Lords opposite--although I should attest to the fact that I did not introduce the Bill as an environmental measure. However, as both noble Lords identified, if that gain is one of the effects of the Bill I am happy to have their support in that respect.
I am not sure that the description of the noble Lord, Lord Cope, is quite fair: he said what a fine mess we have got into. Among his many delightful characteristics, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe, who is sadly missed, enjoyed Oliver Hardy above every other experience in film. I can almost hear him using the phrase now. So I accept it from the noble Lord in the friendly way in which he presented it. He has obviously identified the fact that we are in a situation that we should very much prefer not to be in.
I accept the noble Lord's point that we have a remedy to hand through the passing of this Bill that would not be so easily achieved in other circumstances. Important though small businesses are, and I attest to that obvious point, political parties and the successful and proper conduct of our democracy probably rate a good deal higher in terms of the needs of the nation. That is why, when we have difficulties such as this which cause all political parties substantial problems, it is proper that we remedy them as early as we are able to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Cope, erred slightly on the side of unfairness: the issue has not arisen as a result of shoddy drafting of the Act or the work of Home Office Ministers in that respect. There is nothing wrong with the drafting of the Act. The problem relates to the timing of the commencement and the impact that it had on parties which had already had election material printed. That is the nature of our difficulty.
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