Electoral Commission (Hansard, 9 January 2001)

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord)
Before I call the Minister, I remind the House that, as the occupant of the Chair said last night, this motion is narrow. It deals with whether those listed in it will be appropriate electoral commissioners. The debate does not provide an opportunity to reopen the issues decided when Parliament enacted the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 a few weeks ago.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien)
I beg to move, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will appoint as Electoral Commissioners:

(1) Pamela Joan Gordon for the period of four years;

(2) Sir Neil William David McIntosh KBE for the period of four years;

(3) Johnathon Glyn Mathias for the period of five years;

(4) Sukhminder Karamjit Singh CBE for the period of five years;

(5) James Samuel Younger for the period of six years; and

(6) Graham John Zellick for the period of five years;

and that Her Majesty will appoint James Samuel Younger to be the chairman of the Electoral Commission for the period of six years. As we have been around this course once already, I do not propose to say much now, to allow other hon. Members the opportunity to speak. As I said yesterday, we believe that the six individuals who have been nominated have the appropriate mix of skills and experience necessary to establish the Electoral Commission as an effective independent regulator of the controls on party funding, and as a force for the modernisation of our electoral law and practices—and, boy, do we need modernisation.

§ Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot)
rose—

§ Mr. O'Brien
As the House would expect, we have undertaken all the necessary statutory procedures, including consulting the leaders of those parties with two or more sitting Members of Parliament. I think that the hon. Gentleman wished to intervene.

§ Mr. Howarth
I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his courtesy at this hour of the night. I wished to ask whether he has had a chance during the past 25 hours to reflect on last night's proceedings. He may recall that I asked him about the impartiality of the two nominees who have spent a large part of their careers in the BBC if a referendum on the euro were to take place. Has he had a chance to consider that point?

§ Mr. O'Brien
Of course I consider any comment that the hon. Gentleman makes with a great deal of care. However, I do not have the fears that he seems to have about those who work for the BBC. I am sure that, from time to time, all hon. Members have reason to feel unhappy about the way in which something may have been reported; but, by and large, we can rely on the BBC to be as impartial as it should be. So I have no problem 1030 with the fact that some of those who have applied for the position of electoral commissioner have worked for the BBC.
Perhaps it is not that surprising that people who are interested in politics, but not in being politicians, might find their way into journalism and reporting in an organisation that seeks to be impartial, such as the BBC. I am not sure that we need have any great fear, such as the hon. Gentleman's, but he is entitled to express his views during the debate, and I am sure that he will do so. I shall, of course, seek to respond to the issues raised in the debate in due course; but for the time being, I commend the six individuals named in the motion.

§ Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath)
I am slightly surprised that the Minister thinks it appropriate to be so brief in his opening remarks. Although he says that he intends to respond to the issues raised in the debate, he mentions the fact that the House has been around this course before. However, in the latest part of the disastrous saga that has comprised the history of the election commissioners, the Government lost their business entirely last night because they could not persuade more than 17 of their colleagues and two Liberal Democrats to support them.
Given that the business collapsed last night, we might have thought that the Minister would feel it appropriate to go into slightly more detail about the series of disasters that has characterised the matter. However, it does not matter that the Minister has not done so, because we are starting again from scratch. This is a fresh debate on a completely new motion on today's Order Paper. It is as though last night's debate never happened, so it is important to put on record the history of the Government's disastrous mistakes. After I made my points yesterday, other points were raised by hon. Members. My right hon. and hon. Friends who did not have the opportunity to speak or who were able to speak only briefly may have an opportunity to make some fresh points in tonight's debate.
Let us begin by considering the way in which the Minister explained how the procedure first started. He told us that the Home Office placed an advertisement inviting applicants to fill the position of electoral commissioner and that it had received 223 applications by the closing date. We do not know who all those 223 were.

§ Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst)
They were all from the BBC.

§ Mr. Hawkins
My right hon. Friend suggests that they may have all been from the BBC, but we know that at least four of them were not. We gathered from the Minister that the number of applicants was subsequently—whittled down—his unusual choice of phrase—to a shortlist of 16, who were then invited for interview by a selection panel chaired by Sir David Omand, the permanent secretary at the Home Office. The other members of the panel were Elizabeth Filkin, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards; Sylvia Denman, an academic lawyer specialising in equal opportunity issues; and Nigel Varney, the head of the Home Office party funding unit.
1031 At that stage, things began to go wrong. I am indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning), the shadow Leader of the House, for beginning the process of unravelling exactly what went wrong.

§ Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border)
My hon. Friend has skipped too quickly over the process by which the list was whittled down to a shortlist of 16 for interview. Will he press the Minister on whether the permanent secretary at the Home Office was involved in that process and on what discussions he may have had with the Home Secretary and Ministers about producing a shortlist for interview?

§ Mr. Hawkins
My right hon. Friend makes a good point. In the light of the questions that have been raised by my right hon. and hon. Friends, the Minister might feel that it would be helpful to the House to have all that information placed in the Library and sent to all the Members who have taken part in the debates on the issue. It would be important for the House to have access to that information, particularly when we come at a later stage to the question of the Speaker's Committee. It will be the only way in which the House has scrutiny over those who will be electoral commissioners, if this Address is presented at the conclusion of our proceedings and if the six names become the electoral commissioners. We shall look forward to hearing from the Minister whether he is prepared to provide the important information that my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) seeks.

§ Mr. Forth
I hope that my hon. Friend will not think that I am ungracious, but I think that I am right in saying that, for some very peculiar reason, this matter cannot be resolved today. It is subject to one of the absurd deferred Divisions that take place on Wednesday. Although the clock suggests that that is today, in parliamentary terms it will be tomorrow. Although the debate is taking place now, a completely different group of people will troop through the Lobbies tomorrow and vote on the matter even though they have not taken part in the debate, because they have almost certainly all gone home.

§ Mr. Hawkins
My right hon. Friend is right. He knows that I am as bitter an opponent of these so-called modernisation measures as he is. However, I accept that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, want me to concentrate on the motion.
I turn now to the saga of how things began to unravel for the Government, although the Minister might prefer to gloss over that. On 30 November last year, even before my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton became involved, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) tabled a question asking when the commissioners were to be appointed following the enactment of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
One might have thought that when the shadow Home Secretary asked about Government legislation which only a few days before had become an Act, she would receive a full and proper answer. One might particularly have 1032 expected that answer to mention that the Home Office was about to make a formal announcement to the media. However, the only reply that my right hon. Friend received came on 13 December. It said: We intend to table a motion for an Address to be presented to Her Majesty, as required by section 3(1) of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, soon.—[Official Report, 13 December 2000; Vol. 359, c. 181W.] So far, so good, It was therefore with considerable surprise that we discovered that the very morning after that answer was given to my right hon. Friend, the Home Office issued a press release announcing the names of the members of the Electoral Commission which the Government were putting forward. No reference had been made to an imminent press release in the written answer given to my right hon. Friend only the day before, yet that press release listed the names on the Order Paper that the Government are now proposing and said that those people had been recommended for appointment. Apparently, there was no question then of the matter coming before the House.
We are now entirely agreed that this is a matter for the House, but it rapidly became clear that the Home Office had more than somewhat jumped the gun. That became clear so quickly because of the usual perception shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton in raising the matter at business questions on 14 December. She asked the Leader of the House: Why will the House have to wait until mid-January before the electoral commissioners are appointed, as the Home Office press release states? Surely we could debate that in the coming week and have them in place for the new year—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. Although it is true that we are starting afresh tonight, the hon. Gentleman is giving the House interesting background information, and we are here to discuss the suitability of these people to be commissioners—and that is all.

§ Mr. Hawkins
I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you will allow me to set out a little of the background to show how the official Opposition were able to ensure that this debate is taking place at all.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I will not. The hon. Gentleman must confine his remarks to the suitability of the persons named to be commissioners.

§ Mr. Hawkins
I shall seek to do so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but you will understand that the official Opposition's concern about how this motion comes to be before the House is linked to the suitability of the persons named. Given the Government's problems on the matter, it is almost impossible to disentangle those two issues.
No less a person than the Home Secretary had to write a grovelling apology to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton. He had also to write to his Chief Whip and to Mr. Speaker—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman may find it difficult to disentangle the two issues about which he is talking, but he must try a little harder; otherwise, he will have to bring his remarks to a close.

§ Mr. Hawkins
I shall certainly do my level best, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
1033 Under questioning from my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton about the particular issue that we are debating tonight and the Home Office press release announcing the names of the commissioners, the Leader of the House said: As for the Home Office press release, I am afraid that I am not familiar with precisely what was said or why … However, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill has been extensively discussed … I understand that the House is interested in who the commissioners may be, but I am not aware of a suggestion that we should debate those appointments. Indeed, successive Governments have not thought that there should be accountability, other than through Ministers, for appointments that are made through the proper public appointment process.—[Official Report. 14 December 2000; Vol. 359, c. 804–05.] The Leader of the House appeared to suggest to my hon. Friend that the matter that we are debating—the suitability or otherwise of particular names of particular commissioners—should not be debated at all. However, the Home Secretary realised that the Government had promised in the 2000 Act that the matter would have to be debated properly and that a motion that an Address including the names of commissioners be presented to Her Majesty would have to be tabled. That caused the apologies, the letters and, in due course, the debate.
There is no doubt that matters have gone badly awry. The 2000 Act includes provision to set up the Speaker's Committee to oversee the work of the Electoral Commission, and the establishment of that Committee has to be discussed. Can the Minister tell us when it will be established? It will be part of the House's ongoing responsibility to scrutinise not only the current electoral commissioners, but any future commissioners who may be appointed under the legislation. The House needs to know what the Government have in mind on the timing of the appointments of the no fewer than five Members of the House—not including Ministers—who will be on the Speaker's Committee to carry out that ongoing scrutiny. I hope that the Minister can deal with that point.
Last night, my hon. Friends the Members for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) and for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed) and my right hon. Friends the Members for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) and for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) raised a number of substantial concerns about the particular people suggested by the Government. Should they catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, they will have the opportunity to outline those concerns.
I should make it clear that the official Opposition were consulted quite properly about the names, as provided for under the 2000 Act, and we are not suggesting from the Front Bench that there is anything wrong with those particular individuals. However, it is undoubtedly right that, after a lot of work by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton, and after the Government had to admit that their own legislation requires the debate, every Member of the House should have the opportunity to scrutinise the individual names.
We hope that the Electoral Commission and the commissioners will do their work thoroughly and properly, but it is essential—I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends and all other Members of the House will agree—that appointments should always be subject to the overall jurisdiction of the House, no matter who becomes a commissioner in future. Unless the House ultimately controls the destiny of those matters, we will have 1034 subcontracted the issue relating to elections in a way that I, and no doubt my right hon. and hon. Friends, would find deeply disturbing.
Having made those points, I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will have the opportunity to explore the issues that are of interest to them. I also hope that we will hear a great deal more from the Minister about how the House will be able to continue its scrutiny not only of the current commissioners, but of any future commissioners, through the Speaker's Committee.

§ Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border)
The question before us, which is relatively narrow, is simply whether Sam, Pam, Neil, Glyn, Karamjit and Graham are the right people to be put on the commission to carry out the tasks with which they have been entrusted.
In the press release issued by the Minister explaining that the members of the commission would be Sam Younger, Pamela Gordon, Sir Neil McIntosh, Glyn Mathias, Karamjit Singh and Professor Graham Zellick, he describes briefly the tasks that those six people will be expected to perform. Their overriding task, which is listed first in the press statement, is to scrutinise electoral issues such as party funding and referendums, and ensure the delivery of the Neill principles of integrity and openness. They will also provide independent oversight of the new funding framework for UK political parties.
Of course, those six people—Sam Younger, Pamela Gordon, Sir Neil McIntosh, Glyn Mathias, Karamjit Singh and Professor Graham Zellick—will also monitor the political parties compliance with the controls on their income and expenditure. In between times, they will keep under review the law and practice in relation to elections and referendums, although none of them seems to be legally qualified, except Professor Graham Zellick, who is a vice-chancellor of a university and may have a legal qualification. Members of the commission will promote awareness of electoral systems, take over responsibility for the review of parliamentary and local government boundaries, and comment on the intelligibility of referendum questions. That is a tremendously wide-ranging groups of important activities for those six people. The question is whether they are qualified to do the job and why the Government picked them, rather than others. We are told by the Minister that Ministers had no involvement at all in the selection process.
These matters need to be probed more closely. Of course, Ministers were not on the selection panel of the final four, but we need a straight answer from the Minister to the question whether, at any time, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, Sir David Omand, had any discussions with the Home Secretary or the Minister about the selection list, the whittling down of the list to the 16 people who would come in for interview, and any opinions after those people were interviewed. I imagine that the permanent secretary would not have had discussions with the Secretary of State following the oral interviews, and that the decision had presumably been made by the board. The four interviewers would have made the final decision on the selection of six people out of 16.
Unless systems have changed radically, I suspect that at some time the permanent secretary may have had a discussion with the Home Secretary about the criteria for 1035 selection, and the qualities that the Home Secretary might have in mind in drawing up a final shortlist of 16. The Minister was careful in his choice of words. He said that Ministers were not involved in the final selection process. That may be absolutely correct. Of course, I believe what he says, but were Ministers involved at any stage in the selection process?
Apart from being consulted about the original advertisement in The Guardian—the Home Office still usually uses that newspaper to advertise such posts—and the criteria, were Ministers consulted at all by civil servants, particularly by the permanent secretary, on any of the names to be included in the list at any stage? Let us consider the qualities of the people required to do the job. Some people are required to promote public awareness of electoral systems.

§ Mr. Forth
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. With his unique knowledge of the background to the mechanisms which may be used, does he agree that there is at least a prima facie case for presuming that Ministers would have laid down criteria such as gender, ethnicity and regionality in the selection process in order to arrive at the sort of outcome that Ministers would have wanted? Will my right hon. Friend speculate on the extent to which that might or might not conflict with qualifications and competence?

§ Mr. Maclean
My right hon. Friend is right. I suspect that, initially. Ministers would have laid down certain criteria on the desired mix, including ethnicity. They failed quite badly on the sexual mix. I can see only one woman on the list, which is a critical failing of Home Office Ministers in this Government. Such criteria would help to stack the list. But I am concerned about what particular discussions Ministers may have had with the permanent secretary.
As I was saying, Sam, Pam, Neil, Glyn, Karamjit and Graham have as one of their prime tasks responsibility for promoting public awareness of electoral systems. That may be why, with the important responsibility of promoting public awareness and dealing with the media, two members of the commission are from the BBC. In other words, one third of them are from the BBC. But were these the best people to take from the BBC? One has heard of Glyn Mathias and has seen him on the television occasionally. I do not know of Sam Younger. But the Government could have picked someone more important or apparently more powerful. They could have recruited Greg Dyke himself to serve on the commission rather than Mr. Sam Younger.

§ Mr. Forth
No.

§ Mr. Maclean
My right hon. Friend pre-empts me. Of course the Government could not have picked Mr. Greg Dyke for the task because he handed over cheques for £25,000 and £10,000 to the Government and was then made a director of the BBC, and that disqualifies him from replacing Mr. Sam Younger as one of the media people on the commission. But there are others who are equally qualified and have experience of the media. Melvyn Bragg in my constituency would have been an excellent choice, but he, too, is excluded because he 1036 donated a mere £7,500 and then got his peerage. He would not be eligible to serve on this body until 2008, on the expiry of the 10-year bar. There are others who may be as good as Glyn Mathias. In the film world, there is David Puttnam, for example. He is qualified.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Before we go much further down this road, I remind hon. Members that we are not here tonight to debate the suitability or otherwise of people not mentioned in the motion. We are here specifically to deal with the people mentioned on the Order Paper.

§ Mr. Maclean
I shall not go further down the road of mentioning characters from the media, but shall try to stick closely to the narrow debate on the suitability of Sam Younger, Pamela Gordon, Neil McIntosh—for the avoidance of any doubt, that is Sir Neil McIntosh, not Sir Cameron Mackintosh, of Labour funding fame, who gave the Labour party £50,000 and then got his knighthood. The people on today's Order Paper have been appointed for various periods of four, five and six years. How can the House judge whether those six people best fit the criteria in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and those set out by the Minister in his press release justifying their appointment?
The Minister has set out the criteria simply to justify the selection of the six people whom we have before us tonight. That was clear from his press release. I was not seeking deliberately to stray, but I had to ask whether, if the Government wanted to appoint media people, or people with experience in the media, such as Sam Younger, there were not better people.

§ Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Would not those be reasonable points for the Leader of the Opposition to place before the Government when he agreed to the list which, I suspect, was some time early in November?

§ Mr. Maclean
The hon. Gentleman can suspect that it was any time he likes. I have no idea what was discussed between my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and the Government party. No one else in the House does. I am not sure whether the Minister was there. I am not sure that the Minister has read any letter that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition may have sent in. However, whatever was discussed in private and whatever other parties submitted are irrelevant. There is a motion before the House, and it is for the House to decide. For all I know, my right hon. Friend may have had reservations about those people, or he may think that they are the best thing since sliced bread. The leaders of political parties may have commented to the Government selection machine in private, but I am not privy to those discussions. Even if my right hon. Friend were content with Neil McIntosh, Pamela Gordon and Sam Younger, that would not be relevant. If the Government had given us the 16 names on the shortlist, or perhaps the 50 that they had before the Home Office whittled that down to 16, and asked for our choice from those 50 or 16, I suspect that my right hon. Friend—and perhaps the Liberal Democrat party as well—may have come up with a different six names for the shortlist.
1037 When presented with a fait accompli—a list devised by the Government and selected by an apparently foolproof or impartial procedure—on what grounds could my right hon. Friend or anyone else object to those people? I have no particular objections to them, and think that they are excellent. They are probably better than the alternatives that I was suggesting earlier. I do not want the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) to lead me down a blind alley, as I want to get back to the merits of the six people before us and see whether they are the best ones for the job.
Mr. Karamjit Singh is a member of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. I am not quite sure how useful that will be for the Electoral Commission, unless the Government have such a low opinion of politicians and political parties that they consider us all a bunch of criminals, in which case Mr. Singh may have particular skills. I suspect that it could be a good in-joke in the Home Office's selection committee to include someone on the Criminal Cases Review Commission, who has experience of dealing with the vilest criminals in the country, on a commission that oversees the workings of Parliament and politicians. I appreciate that joke myself.
The commission does not have any business experience. What a pity that Lord Paul was not eligible for selection. He is the Indian business man who sensibly waited for his peerage before giving the Labour party £46,000 for it, and £60,000 a year later. Someone with that business experience could have made a valuable contribution to the body, which is charged with trying to get its message across to the wider public. In that situation, someone with experience in communication other than the media would be excellent. I would have welcomed someone like Richard Faulkner, the managing director of Westminster Communications. [Interruption.] However, I will not welcome him any further.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman is now doing precisely what I advised him not to do.

§ Mr. Maclean
We must not go down that route, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have to consider whether Karamjit Singh, Glyn Mathias, Neil McIntosh, Pamela Gordon and Sam Younger are ideally placed to fulfil the tasks before them. I have no objection to them per se, but my concern is that because two of them have considerable experience of the BBC, they will bring to their job the institutional bias that all BBC staff have. As I said in the House on a previous occasion, if the Scottish judge Macpherson was to make an analysis of the BBC, he would conclude that it was institutionally Europhiliac. At present, the BBC is running a huge casmpaign to support the euro at every turn and do down our own currency. When challenged, it says that it is not biased, and that that is just reflecting normal run-of-the-mill middle-England thinking. Whenever it is challenged on bias, it genuinely does not believe that it has an in-built bias. It believes that its opinion and that of The Guardian is exactly the same as the mainstream opinion that is expressed in The Sun, the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph.

§ Mr. Forth
Does my right hon. Friend concede that, even if it were acceptable for one person with an institutionalised BBC background to serve on the commission—at a stretch, that might just about be 1038 acceptable—the appointment of two people from that ghastly organisation raises natural suspicions about what is going on? Does my right hon. Friend wonder how any so-called impartial selection committee could end up with two ghastly BBC people and claim that they were representative of the electorate?

§ Mr. Maclean
My right hon. Friend makes a good point. It is a pity that someone from Granada Television or the independent sector, such as Alexander Bernstein, has not been chosen. BBC individuals have an in-built bias that they do not perceive. One does not find that bias in some other media organisations.
No one from the print media has been selected to serve on the commission. One third of the commissioners will be from the BBC; they will bring with them an unwitting, institutional bias. Many BBC individuals are thoroughly decent, and do not intend to be biased; they simply do not understand that their attitudes, life style and beliefs are not those of the majority of the British people. They take an intellectual, Guardian-reading, liberal establishment view of life. Doubtless many Labour Members aspire to such a view. Many live in places such as Hampstead and Islington nowadays. The two proposed BBC commissioners may bring that bias with them and thus unwittingly diminish the integrity and importance of the Electoral Commission.
That applies especially if one of the commissioners' tasks is to comment on a referendum question on the euro or any other subject. How can the country have faith that the commissioners of the august organisation that we are considering will be impartial when their most recent employers—the BBC—will throw the weight of a multi-billion-pound corporation into a fanatical Britain must join the euro at all costs campaign?

§ Mr. Gerald Howarth
My right hon. Friend amplifies some of the points that I made last night. I am most grateful to him because he has put them even more succinctly than me. Given the grave importance of the issue, and if—it is a big if, as I said last night—there is another Labour Government, the proposed commissioners, who have had the opportunity by now of reading last night's proceedings, should tell us precisely how they would approach a referendum on the euro. They should try to reassure the House that they would be impartial. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should postpone consideration or voting on the motion until we have received such reassurances?

§ Mr. Maclean
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I hope that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will be as willing as your predecessor in the Chair this evening to accept a manuscript amendment during our debate to require the commissioners from the BBC to declare that they would take no part in and absent themselves from deliberations in the Electoral Commission about a referendum on the euro because of the biased nature of their former employer. That former employer is doubtless paying their pensions. I assume that the two relevant commissioners have a reasonable pension fund that is connected with the BBC. In those circumstances, part of their financial interest is with their former employer and paymaster, which will be leading a fanatical join the euro at all costs campaign. The commissioners must deliver the Government's prime aim of ensuring integrity and openness.
1039 I want to comment on a side issue, which, I hope, is relevant. The permanent secretary to the Home Office was one of the people who was involved in the selection process and in reducing the list to 16. In his former life as head of GCHQ—the Government communications headquarters at Cheltenham—he was faced with the task of rooting out spies, getting to the bottom of matters of this kind, and uncovering leaks that would have damaged the safety and security of this country. Yet that same permanent secretary, aided by his successor at GCHQ, when confronted with the evidence possessed by all the press of a leak of the Macpherson report by the Minister of State, Home Office—the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng)—was unable to find the culprit, even on the seventh floor of the Home Office building.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I think the right hon. Gentleman is straying too far from the subject of the motion.

§ Mr. Maclean
I accept your instruction, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I apologise if I have strayed from the strait and narrow. However, it struck me as relevant that one of those who were to select others on the basis of their openness, and their ability to probe the goings-on of political parties and find out whether we were spending money properly and sticking to the law—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. We are not debating the suitability of those who will select; we are discussing the suitability of those whom they select.

§ Mr. Maclean
Exactly, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I hope you will accept that the two issues are connected. To suggest that there may he a flaw in the ability of the selectorate may be to suggest that the person selected is not ideal for the job.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. Perhaps I can help the right hon. Gentleman. There is, in a way, a connection, but I think that what we are now debating is simply the suitability of those who have been selected, by whatever means.

§ Mr. Maclean
I accept your advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker: I accept that they may have been selected by flawed means. In that case, I think we must put the onus on the Minister.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman must not put words in my mouth.

§ Mr. Maclean
Of course not, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but let me put the onus on the Minister to reassure us—if it would be in order—that Sir David Omand, who was unable to find the leaker among his own Ministers, has, in selecting these people, been able to ensure a greater depth of scrutiny, and to assure himself that all six possess the necessary qualities. I want to know that Sir David could obtain, for instance, Sam Younger's full curriculum vitae and all the details of his background, so that he and other members of the panel could tell the Home Secretary that no impropriety was involved, and no blot on the copybook.
1040 We have raised some important issues. As I said earlier, I have no particular worries about the individuals concerned. I think that they may be suitable for the job; I have seen no evidence suggesting that they are unsuitable. I have tried to suggest that there may have been others who wend eminently more suitable, who could have provided a better balance on a commission that will apparently consist entirely of representatives of the BBC and the media generally. Unfortunately, those better people may have been disqualified from serving on the commission for 10 years by the fact that they had not stuffed the Labour party full of money and received their peerages and knighthoods. I look forward to the renewal of the terms in four years' time, in the case of Miss Pamela Gordon and Sir Neil McIntosh—not the Cameron Mackintosh who gives money to the Labour party.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman himself is bound to acknowledge that he is becoming very, very repetitive.

§ Mr. Maclean
That was my peroration, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was summing up in shorthand for the Minister's benefit, so that he could reply to the crucial points at the end of the debate.
I was going to say, in conclusion, that I looked forward to being back here in four years' time, when some of these people will be due to retire, although their appointments may be renewed. We shall then be able to suggest to the Minister the appointment of some of the other able people in the media and business worlds whose time bar will then have expired, because they will have paid their money and got their peerages or knighthoods and will therefore be eligible for service on the commission. They would have detailed knowledge of the workings of political parties because they knew to whom to give the money to get their gongs. Those may be the people who should serve on such a commission, in addition to the six worthies we already have.

§ Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot)
I do not intend to detain the House long, but I would like to put a number of points to the Minister. First and foremost, he might be able to help me out and so, to a certain extent, curtail my remarks, if he assured me that some of the points that were raised last night will be considered. Or should we raise them again tonight to ensure that they are on the record?

§ Mr. Mike O'Brien
With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if hon. Members raised points yesterday that I can deal with today, it will be my intention to do so.

§ Mr. Howarth
That is most helpful. I am grateful to the Minister. May I just remind him of the point that I made yesterday? I should be grateful if he commented on it. It was on the question of political party membership. Clearly, none of the six individuals is currently a member of a political party. They would be debarred had they given to a political party in the past 10 years, but someone who has been a number of a political party recently—for example, last year—would not be debarred from being a commission member. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell us if he knew whether they have been members of any political party. I say that not simply to try to ensure 1041 that we Conservatives are not lumbered with an Electoral Commission that is stuffed full of closet Labour party people. I think that the public will also want to have the maximum reassurance that the Government are able to give, that those people are genuinely as independent as possible.
I see the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton) in his place; he is a fellow member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, which originally proposed the idea of an Electoral Commission. I know that he shares my view, despite the fact that he is a former journalist for The Guardian. He has been trying to go straight since he came here and repent of his many sins. No doubt he, too, would like to ensure that the appointees are genuinely independent.
Let me return briefly to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) about the BBC, Europhilia and the position that Sam Younger and Glyn Mathias may take on the issue. I repeat what my right hon. Friend said because it is important that Labour Members should understand how we feel about the matter. It is not that we believe that people in the BBC are necessarily committed to the Europhile cause and will do all that they can to promote it in contradiction of their obligation to be impartial, which the corporation's charter lays on them. It is that they come with a mindset. We can detect that from the way in which some of the presenters address the issues and question politicians from different vantage points, according to whether they are federalists, integrationists or believers in the sovereignty of these islands. Those presenters genuinely do not seem to understand how things appear to us and to the ordinary listener, who is concerned about those issues.
It is imperative that we are clear about where Glyn Mathias and Sam Younger stand on this issue. I cast no aspersions upon them. This is not a witch hunt and I am not suggesting that they are not men of integrity. We have all seen Glyn Mathias on television. I happen to have a rather higher regard for the World Service than for any other part of the BBC. I listened to Argentina's surrender during the Falklands campaign on a portable radio in Lagos, Nigeria. It was a wonderfully proud moment to hear Lillibullero coming over the airwaves and the wonderful words, "This is London", with all the authority that the BBC World Service commands. It is not—

§ Mr. O'Brien
It might assist the hon. Gentleman to know that during the time to which he is referring, Glyn Mathias was the controller of public affairs at ITN and was subsequently its chief political correspondent.

§ Mr. Howarth
I am grateful for that clarification. As I understand it, he has since worked for the BBC.
I should like to correct something that I said last night. I said that two of the people had spent their entire careers at the BBC. The Minister has helpfully enabled me to correct that. What I said was not accurate, but those people have spent a great deal of time there. I hope that the Minister recognises my question as being valid, particularly as it is likely that we will develop more referendums in this country and that the role of the commission in policing them will be critical.
1042 My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed) made an entertaining, if unfortunately brief, contribution to our proceedings last night, and I am sorry that he is not here now. He said that many of the names in the list sounded rather Scottish. He said that Pamela Joan Gordon sounds Scottish. I do not have my notes from last night, but I believe that she was involved with the local authority in—

§ Mr. Forth
Sheffield.

§ Mr. Howarth
Yes, but prior to that I believe that she was in Inverness. The Minister may be able to correct me.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire also said that Sir Neil William David McIntosh—who as my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) reminds us is not Cameron Mackintosh, who has given money to the Labour party—also sounds pretty Scottish. I believe that he was on Strathclyde council. We know that Mr. Singh does not sound Scottish. Mr. Younger sounds as if he comes from the north of the United Kingdom. Our noble Friend Lord Younger is Scottish so one can make an assumption, although perhaps incorrectly, that Sam Younger comes from Scotland.
The Government are fixated on targets, gender mix, ethnicity and all that ghastly quota stuff, and it appears from the list of names as if poor old England has not had much of a look-in. Was consideration given to ensuring a good regional mix for the whole of the United Kingdom? For example, is there anybody with any connection to Northern Ireland? I suspect there is not. Given that the legislation provides for up to nine commissioners and we are invited to approve only six, perhaps a seventh might have been appointed to represent the interests of Northern Ireland.

§ Mr. Forth
Is my hon. Friend aware that more people live in London than in Scotland? Does he consider that a representation from London should be included in his possible list of commissioners? Moreover, would not the inclusion of a representative of the real world of business and commerce—of profit, employment and the payment of taxes—be of advantage to this body, as it would bring to it a proper perspective? Are not those two enormous lacunae in the list?

§ Mr. Maclean
Alan Sugar, for instance.

§ Mr. Howarth
Indeed they are, and the possibility of having nine commissioners would allow such people to be accommodated. I should be perfectly content with a London representative—as long as London were not synonymous with Islington in this case. Last night I mentioned that it was an omission that the list did not contain a person with serious business experience from the real world. Alan Sugar might have been appropriate, but his donation to the Labour party rules him out.

§ Mr. Hawkins
My hon. Friend has raised an interesting point about adding to the list a commissioner able to deal with Northern Ireland. However, he may not be aware that 1043 an unresolved issue between Labour and Conservative Front-Bench Members was section 7 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—

§ Mr. Miller
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Are we not debating the six names proposed in the motion, rather than other possible names?

§ Madam Deputy Speaker
It is true that the motion is, as has already been said, very limited. We are here to discuss the members of the commission

§ Mr. Hawkins
I accept that stricture, Madam Deputy Speaker, but my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) has noted that none of the six proposed commissioners has the ability to deal with Northern Ireland. I was simply asking my hon. Friend to consider the point that section 7 of the 2000 Act, which creates the commissioners, states that no order may be made in relation to party funding in Northern Ireland until the commission—which would include the six commissioners whose names are before us—had been consulted, after which an affirmative order could be passed. That matter remains an issue between Labour and Conservative Front Benchers, and I wondered whether my hon. Friend was aware of that.

§ Mr. Howarth
I was not aware of that. The House should be grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing that to its attention.

§ Mr. David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire)
I am not.

§ Mr. Howarth
The hon. Gentleman is not interested in debate. He is interested in going home. I quite understand that, but these are important matters. Those of us who are of a Unionist disposition—and that includes some Labour Members, although Conservatives are more passionate about the matter—consider that it would be a mistake to overlook the Northern Ireland dimension.
The final point on which I seek the Minister's reassurance is that there was no attempt by the Labour party or the Home Office to encourage particular individuals to submit their names for the commission. I have no reason to believe that that happened, and I am aware that the Minister cannot speak for the Labour party apparatus. However, I am sure that the House would appreciate such an assurance from the Minister.

§ Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch)
I shall be brief. I want to deal with the different lengths of the commissioners' appointments. That point was touched on last night. The Minister said that the provision was in response to a recommendation from the appointment panel that two commissioners should be appointed for four years, three for five years, and the chairman for six years. I would be grateful if the Minister could expand on the thinking behind that. I can understand the desirability of a rolling reappointment system. When I had the privilege of serving on the Local Government Commission and the Health and Safety Commission, there 1044 was much advantage in the fact that not all reappointments were made at the same time. Why was an alternative not acceptable? For example, all six could have been appointed for the same period, with a view to some being reappointed for periods thereafter and some being succeeded by fresh appointments. That was the system that operated with the Local Government Commission.
It is risky for a new body with untried people to have five-year appointments. Appointments for four years have been made to Mrs. Gordon and Sir Neil McIntosh, who may turn out to be the most conscientious and effective members of the body. I fear that they are starting off at a disadvantage and will be regarded as inferior members of the commission. Had the appointments all been for four years, there could have been a reappointment process for which all six would be eligible and the House could have made a judgment on the effectiveness of the different commissioners.
I have some empathy for the position of Mrs. Gordon, because she is a member of the Local Government Commission for England. She is also the only woman member of the commission. I do not understand why she has been appointed for only four years; the Government owe the House an explanation.
I want to reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) on the need for information about whether the commissioners have been supporters of individual political parties within the last 10 years. I hope that that can be made public, in the interests of transparency. It might be unfortunate if we were to find out that all six commissioners had been active members of the Conservative party until five years ago. If that came out, it would be difficult for some people to think that those concerned were as objective as people who were members of different political parties, or of none.
We heard in the news this morning that the first of the confirmatory hearings in the United States collapsed before it even started because one of the proposed nominees to President-Elect Bush's cabinet was found to have an illegal immigrant resident in her house. Obviously, that information was not available to the President-Elect—if it had been, he would not have made such a recommendation to his cabinet. The information came out only as a result of the process of inquiry about those people.
As soon as the news about the identity of the members of the Electoral commission becomes more widely known, it is inevitable that there will be inquiries into their past political leanings. People very rarely change their views, and I can remember when Mr. Greg Dyke, who has already been mentioned in this debate, was the Labour party candidate for the Greater London council elections in Putney in 1977.

§ Mr. David Taylor
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Could you advise the House whether Mr. Greg Dyke is one of the names on the Order Paper? I thought that we were considering only the six names on the Order Paper. Is that correct, Madam Deputy Speaker?

§ Madam Deputy Speaker
We are, indeed, considering the names that are listed.

§ Mr. Chope
I am grateful to you for your ruling, Madam Deputy Speaker. That is exactly what I am 1045 discussing. I am using Mr. Dyke as an example of how leopards rarely change their spots. People who support a political party normally continue to do so.

§ Mr. Maclean
Does my hon. Friend agree that it was a rather stupid point of order, given that the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor) knows that Mr. Greg Dyke is excluded from being on the commission because of the huge amount of money he gave the Labour party, after which he got made head of the BBC?

§ Mr. Chope
My right hon. Friend made that point earlier in the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, when you were not in the Chair.
I hope that the Minister will be as open with the information, as the appointments commission—the recommending body—must have been aware of all the pertinent details about the political leanings of those six people. Although none of them offends against the rules set out in the statute, it is incumbent on the Government to go further and tell the wider public exactly what, if anything, is known about the political leanings of these individuals. In that way, as the Minister said in his opening speech in yesterday's debate, there can be absolute transparency and we can be sure that not only is this an independent commission, but it is seen to be independent.

§ Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst)
The Minister has been at pains to reassure the House of the integrity of the selection process. In doing so, he referred with glowing pride to the fact that the permanent secretary at the Home Office, no less, had chaired the panel that took part in the selection process. However, I think that we should know somewhat more of the process prior to that.
The Minister said that some 200 people had responded to advertisements. I would like to know where the advertisements were placed. I suspect that they were all placed in the BBC house magazine, which would go some way to explaining this bizarre outcome, whereby two people out of a panel of six have come from the BBC. I shall return to that issue because the BBC has dominated the debate, and rightly so.
That gives rise to some real questions about the nature of the process whereby we have ended up with these six names. Where were the advertisements placed? Who did the initial sifting to take the 200 down to the much more limited number that this panel of alleged integrity, chaired by the permanent secretary, considered? What criteria did Ministers lay down to the permanent secretary and his colleagues on the panel as regards the shape and characteristics of the commission and the people being selected?
Purely in the cause of transparency, we should know how far gender, ethnicity and regional requirements were placed on the selection panel. The fact that we have ended up with one lady member of the commission may be a cause for celebration by the Government, but, as my hon. Friends pointed out, I suspect that many of the babes on the Labour Back Benches may be irked at the fact that, as they never tire of telling us, half of the electorate whose interests are to be safeguarded by the commission are people of gender, whereas only one of them is to be a 1046 member of it. That is hardly proper representation. Should the Government feel proud or ashamed of the fact that there is one person of gender in the commission?
The same argument could be said to apply to ethnicity, although a person of ethnicity is a member—if we can make that assumption from the gentleman's name. Thus the Government may feel satisfied. However, when it comes to regional representation, a completely new set of questions arises. The far-flung fringes of the kingdom are over-represented on the commission. Where is middle England, in which you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have some interest, and where is London, in which I have a great interest? The commission is packed with peculiar Scots and weird northerners. There is no one from the solid south or the solid midlands. The body is completely unrepresentative.

§ Mr. Maclean
My right hon. Friend will be aware that there is a huge Greek community in London. Is he not disappointed, therefore, that Mr. Haris Sophoclides has been excluded—a prominent Greek business man and property developer, who gave £100,000 to the Labour party?

§ Mr. Forth
We could spend much time listing the people who have given huge amounts to the Labour party—although you would rightly not allow it, Madam Deputy Speaker—and who have therefore ruled themselves out of consideration. In fact, it would be interesting to know how many people were ruled out at the early stages of selection on the basis that they had given large sums to the Labour party. I may touch on that subject shortly, although I want to leave the Minister time to reply to the debate and I am conscious of the clock.
Whether the commission is properly representative is questionable. Given its role in overseeing the electoral process, not to say referendums, one would look for more than a normal degree of representativeness; it fails that test.
On qualifications and expertise, the Home Office press release that described the commission's responsibilities pointed out that it would monitor political parties' compliance with the controls on their income and expenditure I should have thought, therefore, that we would want some accountants on the commission who were in possession of current passports, because they would have to travel to such places as Bermuda to establish whether money had flowed through that country to the Government and the Labour party before they had cleared it in terms of requirements here.
The press release also stated that one of the commission's other jobs was to promote public awareness of electoral systems. That is what worries me. One would have thought that the promotion of public awareness would have led one to look for people with media expertise and experience, so that that could be done evenhandedly. I should have thought that one would have looked for people from the media who could be relied on to be unbiased and impartial and to inform the public in that sort of way. Instead, we have two people from the BBC. Straight away we see a complete lack of qualifications to fulfil that important responsibility of the commission. No one is going to tell me that appointing two BBC people out of a total 1047 membership of six will reassure anyone that the commission will have an unbiased view of electoral systems—one of its responsibilities.
Another important matter—again, taken from the Home Office press release—is that the commission will apparently comment on the intelligibility of a referendum question. That leads me to suggest that the commission's members should have an acute awareness of the role of referendums in our political process and the vital fact that the nature of the question asked in a referendum can undoubtedly often affect its outcome. Against that background, the fact that two of the commission's members have experience of criminal matters—one from the Criminal Cases Review Commission and another as an academic lawyer—may be reassuring in tracking down people who illegally give money to the Labour party, but it gives me no confidence that they are qualified to judge referendum questions.
Where are those with the qualifications to make such judgments? The press release refers to the director-general of the British Red Cross Society, who is no doubt excellent, and to the chief executive of Sheffield city council—I do not know how many referendums it has run recently—and the convenor of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, but I look in vain for a hint of someone with the qualifications to judge the intelligibility of a referendum question.
The press release tells me that one of the BBC chaps—this Mathias gentleman—was recently public affairs manager at BBC Wales. I do not know whether that qualifies him, because the referendum in Wales was a complete flop and a failure. There was a pathetic turnout and a very narrow result. The Assembly was foisted on the people of Wales as a result of a completely failed referendum. That gives me no confidence that such a background will qualify that gentleman to deal with the intelligibility of a referendum question.
All in all, I regret to say that I look in vain at that list of no doubt excellent people for any qualifications relevant to the matter in hand, whether we are talking about balance, impartiality or representativeness. Wherever I look, I fail to find evidence that those no doubt excellent people qualify. The Government should therefore reconsider the matter. We gave them the chance to do so last night. I regret to say that there was so little interest in the House when the matter was put to the test that the Government could not even muster 19 Members; out of 46 Liberal Democrats, two were here—to give them their due—but only 17 out of 417 Labour Members voted.

§ Mr. Mike O'Brien
rose—

§ Mr. Gerald Howarth
rose—

§ Mr. Forth
I shall sit down in a moment, but I shall give way to my hon. Friend before I do so.

§ Mr. Howarth
I understand that the two Liberal Democrats who went into the Lobby with the Government did so because a Government Whip told them that, unless they did so, they could not hold the Adjournment debate.

§ Mr. David Taylor
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will you rule on the relevance to the motion of the number of Members participating in Divisions last night?

§ Madam Deputy Speaker
That is purely a factual matter, which is well reported in Hansard.

§ Mr. Forth
It is also why we are here tonight, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I am not at all satisfied with the list of people, but the Minister now has a chance to satisfy me. I shall sit down now so that he can reply to the debate, but he will have to work pretty hard to satisfy me that the list of people is suitable for the very important responsibilities that we have given the Electoral Commission.

§ Mr. Mike O'Brien
I hope that I will not have to work hard, because I know that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) holds in high regard the views of the leader of his party, who endorsed the names of the members of the commission on 2 November. Unless he entirely ignores the views of his party leader, he will spare me the job of working quite so hard to convince him.
We have had a useful debate, informed by some interesting contributions. Last night, we heard an outstanding and erudite speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton), who enlightened us not only on how the commissioners would operate here, but contrasted our system with his knowledge of Canadian circumstances. We all—found that very helpful.
I take comfort from the fact that the proposed nominees for appointment as electoral commissioners have broadly the support of both sides of the House, with only one or two voices of dissent. However, there has been no indication that anyone is likely to oppose the nominations in the vote. It is it important that the commissioners, both individually and collectively, command the confidence of all the main political parties. Despite the huff, puff and general blather from the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) today and yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition supports the nominees and I am grateful for the indications of support that have come from him as the leader of the Conservative party. The Liberal Democrats have also signalled their support for the nominees.
Several Members raised pertinent points and I shall endeavour to respond to as many of them as I can in the time available. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath made great play of events shortly before the Christmas recess. As he is aware, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already indicated his regret to the Speaker for the premature release of a Home Office press notice announcing the names of the electoral commissioners-designate. No discourtesy to the House was intended. Indeed, the press notice made it clear that the appointments were entirely subject to debate and approval by the House.
1049 The hon. Gentleman also asked about the Speaker's Committee that will liaise and oversee the commissioners. It was established by section 2 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and it will provide the appropriate mechanism for parliamentary scrutiny of the work of the Electoral Commission. In particular, the Speaker's Committee will be responsible for approving the commission's annual budget and five-year corporate plan.
The appointment of five of the nine members of the Committee is a matter entirely for the Speaker. He will no doubt make an announcement about this in due course. The other members are the Speaker himself, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett), in his capacity as Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, and a Minister responsible for local government who will be appointed by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. The latter appointment will be made shortly. It will be a matter for the Speaker, as Chairman of the Committee, to convene its first meeting. I understand that this is likely to be some time in February to enable the Committee to consider the Electoral Commission's draft budget for the next financial year.
Yesterday, the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) asked about the timing of the disclosure of donations to political parties. The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 requires political parties to report donations worth more than £5,000 to the Electoral Commission on a quarterly basis. Part IV of the Act will come into force on 16 February, so the first reporting cycle will cover donations received and accepted between that date and 31 March inclusive. Parties then have 30 days to submit their donation reports to the commission.

§ Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall)
Will the Minister give way?

§ Mr. O'Brien
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall try to deal with the points raised in the limited time that I have left. If I have some time left later, I will give way to him.
Parties will have 30 days to submit their donation reports to the commission, so we can expect the publication of the first donation reports on, or shortly after, 30 April. In addition to the quarterly reporting cycle, parties will also have to report donations on a weekly basis during a general election period. That will ensure that information about donations is in the public domain before people cast their votes on polling day. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

§ Mr. Hawkins
Which civil servant came up with that phrase?

§ Mr. O'Brien
The hon. Gentleman asks where that comment comes from. If he had read it, he would have seen that it appears in the Home Affairs Select Committee report that was the start of the process of considering the way in which parties are overseen. That was well before the Neill report appeared. Indeed, that comment was made by a former Chairman of the Committee, Sir Ivan Lawrence.
1050 The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey wanted the commissioners to consider a cap on donations, but I remind him that such a proposition was rejected by the Neill committee, and by this House and another place during the passage of the Bill. That does not preclude the Electoral Commission from revisiting the issue at some stage. When it does so will be a matter for the commission.
The hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) reminded us of the provisions of section 3(4) of the Act which debars certain persons from being appointed as members of the Electoral Commission by virtue of past party political activity. He pointed out that while an electoral commissioner could not be a current member of a political party, past membership was no bar to appointment. That subsection was debated at some length during the passage of the Bill. Suffice it to say that in enacting that provision in its current form Parliament has decided that previous membership of a political party is not sufficient on its own to rule someone out of contention. To impose a 10-year bar on party membership would run the risk of excluding from consideration a great number of otherwise qualified candidates.
The appropriate test for the Neill committee, which we have adopted, is that the members of the commission should not be people who have previously been involved in any substantial way in party politics. That accords with paragraph 11.8 of the Neill committee report. The individuals named in the motion pass that test. The time to impose a stronger test, if the hon. Gentleman wanted one, was during the Bill's passage. However, I seem to recall that there was a great deal of debate about that, and at least some Opposition Members expressed concern at the time that we should not exclude people who have taken part in political activity from the commission, rather than saying that they should be excluded because of their party political membership.
The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) asked about people who had in the past had a party political affiliation. He suggested that once one is a member of a party, one tends to remain in that party. Well, I remind him that three Members rejected the right-wing lurch of the Conservative party and joined Labour on these Benches.
The right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) asked how the number of candidates was whittled down in the selection process and whether Sir David Omand was involved in that. A standard process was used for the selection panel, with assistance from PricewaterhouseCoopers. In the first sift, the candidates were divided into three bands according to their suitability. The first banding was reviewed by all members of the panel, which then collectively decided which candidates ought to be invited for an interview. The Home Secretary was informed of the shortlist but played no part in drawing it up. Nor did he suggest which candidates should be finally selected. As far as I am aware, there was no political involvement in that process.
The hon. Member for Aldershot also asked why there is no Northern Ireland commission. The Electoral Commission is a collective decision-making body with a UK-wide remit, so there is no question of having separate commissioners—
1051 It being one and a half after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 16.
Question put:—

§ Madam Deputy Speaker
I think the Ayes have it.

Hon. Members
No.
Division deferred till Wednesday 10 January, pursuant to Order [7 November 2000].