Contribution
My Lords, it is a pleasure and an honour to follow the right reverend Prelate, and of course we all wish him well in his retirement. We will miss him, and his views on democracy are very well established. I agree with him in relation to prisoners, but that is a personal view.
Democracy is fragile, and too many people have lost faith in our politicians and in our Parliament. We must give citizens confidence that our system is fair, inclusive, transparent and accessible.
I commend the Government for taking action to prevent overseas money influencing our politics, but the influence wielded by domestic mega-donors also threatens our political system. It is a challenge to democracy and corrupts our politics. I welcome the letter from the Housing Secretary and the First Secretary of State to the Electoral Commission asking for an immediate review of political spending caps. This is very urgent. I therefore ask my noble friend whether the Government commit to a timeline for announcing and legislating further measures to cap donations.
As well as deciding what electoral law should be, we must consider stronger penalties for breaches of the law, including confiscation of the entire donation and a substantial fine. It would be good to have the views of my noble friend the Minister.
One important aspect of electoral funding was not properly addressed by Rycroft and is absent from the legislation. The use of think tanks funded by unknown sources and foreign money to influence our politics should concern us all, as it does the Liberal Democrats. Does the Minister agree that think tanks, like charities or political parties, should be required to report and publish information on their donations?
I fervently believe that further work on reforming our electoral law system is crucial and must take place before the election. The Government must review electoral law swiftly and carefully to ensure that it is fit for purpose at every level and then urgently bring forward further legislation. I suggest that perhaps they could do this in the next Session of Parliament to close loopholes, address new issues that have arisen and ensure that our elections are free from undue influence.
I am delighted that the Bill will lower the voting age, but this must be accompanied by education to install political, digital and media literacy. We need this education as soon as the Bill is enacted to ensure that our young people have the information and confidence to participate in the next elections.
I welcome the Bill’s provision to remove the requirement of home addresses to be published on the notice of election agents, and recent changes for candidates to opt out of publishing their home addresses on ballot papers. However, home addresses should be kept private by default. Women candidates are more likely to withhold their addresses than men, which can impact on their ability to prove a local connection. A change to prevent the publication of a candidate’s home address and instead replace geographical location with the constituency, district or ward would put all candidates on an equal footing and ensure both transparency and safety.
As the Electoral Commission’s recent report states, the rising abuse and intimidation of electoral candidates is changing politics. This must not be normalised and requires a change of culture. This Bill is an opportunity to change the culture, so I urge the Minister to take forward five further issues that were not voted on in the Commons: strengthen requirements for running for office by including domestic abuse in the list of offences and disqualification orders, as in Apsana Begum MP’s amendments, which received cross-party support; embed a code of conduct for political campaigning, building on the recommendation from the Speaker’s Conference and the ongoing work of the Electoral Commission, which is engaging parties to create a code; require the Electoral Commission to disseminate candidate safety resources; introduce an elections code of practice for social media platforms; and include an elections advertising code of practice. Claims in non-broadcast election advertising, including social media and targeted digital ads, are currently exempt from the code overseen by the Advertising Standards Authority. Thus, no independent body is responsible for assessing whether factual claims in electoral advertising are accurate. We need to close that gap to ensure fair and factual, robust debate and political expression.
Finally, I will be moving an amendment on compulsory voting, which I believe is a proven method of increasing voter turnout at elections, ensuring that citizens use their vote to influence the shape of our country and empowering them to bring about change.
I end by thanking many organisations for the excellent briefing they have provided, including the Women’s Democracy Group coalition.