ANNUAL STATEMENTS OF ACCOUNTS (Hansard, 13 March 2000)

§ Mr. Tipping
I beg to move amendment No. 12, in page 22, line 13, leave out "£1,000" and insert "£5,000".

§ Madam Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 13, 14 and 72 to 79.

§ Mr. Tipping
Clause 37 allows the Electoral Commission to prescribe different requirements, depending on the level of 117 their income or expenditure, as to the form and content of the annual statement of accounts prepared by registered parties and their accounting units. Small parties should be subject to a light touch, whereas larger parties with a greater income should be dealt with more thoughtfully and effectively.
As originally drafted, the Bill set out three bands of income or expenditure: the first was up to £1,000; the second was £1,000 to £250,000; and the third was £250,000 or more. In Committee, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) argued that those bands were not appropriate and that, in effect, there should be four bands. After reflecting on the matter, we decided not to accept the solution offered by the hon. Gentleman. Amendments Nos. 12 and 13 would introduce three bands that would pitch the cut-off point between the first and second band at £5,000 rather than £1,000. As a result, the intermediate band will be more clearly focused on parties and accounting units that enjoy relatively significant rates of income and expenditure, and will extend the scope for applying a lighter touch to organisations that do not.
Amendments Nos. 73 and 76 pick up on an issue that was discussed in Committee, and will make the Bill compliant with the electronic age. They will ensure that any information received by the Electoral Commission will be in an appropriate form. We have all had the experience of computers that do not talk to one another, or of e-mails that do not arrive in the proper form. The amendments give the commission powers to ask for computer records in a legible form.
Amendment No. 73, which inserts new subsection (3A) into clause 134, also enables a person appointed by the commission to check the operation of any computer as a guard against fraud. I may well be asked if there are precedents on this. There are similar precedents in regulations on the Gaming Board of Great Britain.
Amendments Nos. 14 and 72 are also on the theme of access to records. In both cases, they make self-explanatory changes to ensure consistency with like provisions elsewhere in the Bill.
Amendments Nos. 74, 75, 77 and 78 extend the Electoral Commission's supervisory powers in clause 134 to candidates at elections and the agents of such candidates. Clause 133 already provides that one of the functions of the Electoral Commission is to monitor compliance with the existing controls on candidates' election expenses. The commission cannot undertake that role effectively without appropriate powers to inspect candidates' financial records and to demand explanations relating to what the commission may find in those records. These amendments will confer such powers on the commission.
I remind the House that the Neill committee argued, in paragraph 11.23, that the Electoral Commission should have the power to investigate allegations or suspicions that the existing candidate spending limits have been breached. It is important to point out that the Electoral Commission will investigate these matters, but if criminal proceedings are to be taken, that is a matter for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.
That leads me to amendment No. 79, which merely tidies up the definition of a supervised organisation in clause 134(8) to make it clear that the supervisory powers in that clause are exercisable in respect of the central organisations of a party as well as its accounting units.
118 As has so often been the case during the Bill's passage, these amendments were suggested in other forms in Committee, and I am delighted that the Government have been able to respond, I think appropriately.

§ Mr. Grieve
I shall be brief. I welcome the amendments and am grateful to the Minister for having taken note of the arguments that were made in Committee. The earlier amendments in the group are especially important. The change from £1,000 to £5,000 offers much greater scope and flexibility for very small parties. If the Bill had remained unamended, the second bracket would have extended up to quite substantial levels of party income and expenditure. We regarded that as undesirable.
This is another example of some very sensible work taking place in Committee. I am grateful to the Minister for having listened carefully and improving the Bill substantially as a result.

§ Mr. Stunell
I largely echo the points that the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) has made. I seek reassurance from the Minister on only one aspect. The Government have changed the limits, but not in the way that we proposed in Committee. A band of income and expenditure by accounting units between £1,000 and £5,000 has been shifted down a gear, if I may put it that way, but the guidance that the Electoral Commission will publish in relation to the three bands is not yet known to us. The Electoral Commission, looking at that, might decide to introduce for the lowest band proposals that were suitable for an organisation spending £4,900, thereby making things more complex for those spending less than £1,000.

§ Mr. Tipping
In Committee, and again tonight, the hon. Gentleman has emphasised the nature of Mrs. Brown in his constituency, who needs a light touch on these matters. In Committee, and tonight, I have given an assurance that the light touch will apply in the nought to £5,000 band.

§ Mr. Stunell
I thank the Minister for his reply. Perhaps I should make it clear that Mrs. Brown is the hypothetical treasurer of a very small branch of the Liberal Democrats.

§ Mr. Evans
They are all small.

§ Mr. Stunell
Voices suggest that my example is not so hypothetical. Certainly the branch's accounts are small.
In the light of the Minister's assurance—I might return to it on another occasion for it to be repeated in even stronger form—I welcome the amendments. They offer a major reassurance. As I said in Committee, we face a problem that is parallel to the one facing school governing bodies. We are imposing more complex and onerous procedures on people who are, in essence, volunteers and who do things out of the goodness of their hearts. If we make things too difficult for them, they will stop and that will not benefit politics in this country. I welcome the Minister's assurances.