EMBLEMS (Hansard, 18 November 1998)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Howarth)
I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 2 to 7.

§ Mr. Howarth
The principal purpose of the registration scheme for political parties is to facilitate the running of the new systems for election to the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and, we hope, the European Parliament.
The Bill also addresses the problem of misleading candidates' descriptions. That is in part achieved by the introduction of party emblems on the ballot paper. When introduced, the Bill provided that a party could register one emblem, reflecting what we believed to be the position at that time: that all the main political parties used only one emblem. During consideration of the Bill in the other place, the Conservative Party realised, first, that the party in Scotland had a separate emblem and, a few days later, that the party in Wales also had its own emblem.
The amendments address that problem by providing that a party may register up to three emblems. It will be up to each party to determine whether it wants to register an emblem and, if so, whether it registers one, two or three. A candidate from a party that has more than one emblem registered may, however, use only one of them against his or her name on a ballot paper. This modest change will afford some welcome flexibility not only to the Conservative party but to all registered parties. I therefore commend the amendments to the House.

§ Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale)
After a five-hour interlude, we are back to electoral matters. This is likely to be the final debate in this long Session, but the nature and subject of the amendments is typical of so much that has gone before. We are being asked to examine and approve details of the Government's constitutional reforms that were clearly overlooked in the original 1079 drafting, involving amendments made only this afternoon in another place and an amendment to an amendment passed only on 12 November. There has been no opportunity for anyone to study the Hansard report of the arguments. How could anyone have been aware that we were to consider the Bill tonight, when it was not even on the Order Paper?
The Minister knows that I am charitable, and I do not hold him personally responsible—we have enjoyed working together over the past 18 months on many pieces of legislation, and Conservative Members are grateful for the amendments, which we support—but he will also know that we did not approve of having emblems on ballot papers. Why include emblems when we have managed so long without them? It is becoming increasingly clear that, under the Labour Government, voting for a party is more important than voting for a candidate.
It is clear, as it should have been clear to the Government, that the need for a Bill to register political parties has been prompted by the fact that people will vote for parties in elections for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly; therefore it ought to have been obvious that there would be a requirement for more than three emblems. We objected to emblems and would prefer that no emblems were used, but if the Government want emblems, there ought to be more than three. 1 am surprised that it was not thought of earlier.
We agree with the amendment and are grateful to the Minister and to Lord Williams of Mostyn for the courtesy that they have shown. We feel that sufficient damage has been done to the Government's credibility as regards electoral reform proposals for one day to enable us to accept the amendment, even at this late hour.

§ Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam)
I shall not delay the House by entering into a debate about who should or should not determine the electoral systems that face the people of this country, but it is important that I register the Liberal Democrats' support for the amendment, which is one that we proposed at various stages during the Bill's passage. It is welcome, because it will allow parties in the constituent parts of Great Britain to register their own emblems in their own right, as Scottish, Welsh or English parties. On that basis, we fully support the Government, who have listened to the representations that were made. Having offered our support and registered it in the Official Report, I shall not detain the House any longer.