REPRESENTATION OF THE, PEOPLE BILL (Hansard, 10 April 1974)

§ LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This is a short Bill and, I trust, a non-controversial one. It has a single purpose; that is, to raise the limits on candidates' expenses at local government elections in England and Wales and in Scotland.

Towards the end of the last Parliament, as the noble Lord who preceded me in my present Office is aware, following a recommendation of the Speaker's Conference, legislation was passed to raise the limits of candidates' expenses at a Parliamentary election to the equivalent in present purchasing power of the limits set in 1969. Owing to the shortage of time and the absence of opportunity for consultation with the local authority associations and political Parties, that legislation did not include the raising of the limits for local elections. This Bill is the outcome of full consultation. Its timing is dictated by the forthcoming London borough elections and the elections to the new local authorities in Scotland.

The limits fixed in 1969 for all local government elections in Great Britain, with the exception of G.L.C. elections, were £30, plus 5p for every six electors. For the G.L.C. elections the limit was £200, plus 5p for every four electors, and this figure is still considered adequate and is not touched by the Bill. The limit for the other elections is to be raised to £45, plus 1p for each elector. This will help candidates to meet rising costs, such as printing and postage costs. In actual money terms it means that in a ward with 1,200 electors the limit rises from £40 to £57. In award with 6,000 electors the increase is from £80 to £105. It may be said that these limits are not high enough, given the great increase in printing costs and the recently increased postal charges. The increases in the Bill are strictly proportionate to those made last February for Parliamentary elections and I do not think that further increases can be justified. I believe that this Bill will commend itself to your Lordships. I beg to move.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, it was the very last day of the last Parliament when we were considering the brother Bill about Parliamentary elections. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has fully explained this one. I have no objection whatever to this Bill, and I do not think that anybody on this side of the House would have any objection. I noticed that my honourable friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield made one rather interesting point, about two notional different sets of municipal elections, which seems to me to warrant some further thought, though not obviously for the purposes of this Bill. There must now be a growing collection of items to do with representation of the people in the hands of the Home Office which have already been considered by the Speaker's Conference and by others concerned, and perhaps in due course we may have a Bill on this subject where we can actually put down some Amendments. The last two Bills have gone through all their stages on the same day. Perhaps some of your Lordships, interested in local government, would have been inclined to raise matters on this Bill, whereas the previous one affected only Members of another place. Perhaps sooner or later the noble Lord will bring something else forward, or alternatively, if there are individual points that my noble friends or other Members of the House wish to raise on this subject, I am sure that they can write to him and have that matter put on the agenda, if it is not there already. The last remark I should like to make is that I received a mild rebuke from a number of my noble friends for saying 5p and 1p. I therefore make amends by saying 5 pence and one penny.