I am pleased to be afforded the Floor of the House for this Adjournment debate on the reform of election law. Many might ask, “What does it matter?” Naysayers might say that this is a debate in defence of ourselves. Well, perhaps, but this is serious. Our election law is a mess, leaving candidates and agents exposed as never before to the real risk of criminal prosecution, so this cannot wait—it needs solving now.
Election law is important, as it defines the type of democratic institutions that we have. The playing field must be fair and equal, and seen to be so, and the results of elections need to be respected as just and fair. That must be encapsulated in our election law.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way before he gets into the thrust of his contribution. I asked his permission to intervene beforehand.
In Northern Ireland we have made many, many changes to electoral law, particularly for stricter controls on registration and identification. That is not the subject of this debate, but does the hon. Gentleman agree on the need for voter ID in the mainland? We have done it in Northern Ireland, and it has done away with a lot of discrepancies in voting. That may be a separate issue but, none the less, does he agree it is important?
I thank the hon. Gentleman. He raises a wider debate about voter registration, and I would not object to its application on the mainland. I see nothing wrong with every single voter having a unique identifying code so that people cannot vote in two places, for instance. I would welcome moves towards that.
Through no design of mine, and for obvious reasons, I have come over the past two years to know, rather too closely, the intricacies of election law. I do not intend my contribution to descend into a personal rant against the Electoral Commission, the Crown Prosecution Service and Kent police, which led me to a three-month trial and subsequent acquittal, but I hope some good can come from my experiences by being a catalyst for the reform of election law, which was recently described by a retired professor of election law, Bob Watt, as a “compost heap”.
We have two key statutes: the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, often referred to as the PPERA; and the Representation of the People Act 1983, often called the RPA. The PPERA was enacted to reflect the reality of modern politics, and it created the Electoral Commission, a statutory body with powers over election processes and guidance setting for candidates, agents, political parties and, importantly, local authority electoral staff.
The Electoral Commission has a budget of £17 million and employs 134 staff. It oversees and controls national party spending, donations and reporting and the regulation of third-party campaigners, among other things. Members may not be aware that it is from the PPERA that ballot papers have thereafter had the candidate’s name and the logo of the national political party for whom they are standing. That was a recognition of the reality that the electorate vote for political parties. Few of us in this House would be so bold as to claim that the electorate vote for us solely as individuals—if only that were true; they vote in larger part for the party messages, for the perceptions they have of party leaders and for the national party manifestos. This legislation set spending limits of close to £20 million for registered political parties to spend across the UK in the regulated period of a year prior to a planned and forecast election as envisaged by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011.
I wish to recap. Worryingly, a candidate in an election could be liable under the law for spending on his behalf that he neither authorised, nor was even aware of.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as he has encapsulated the issue in a few brief sentences. I will be expanding on that in the remainder of the debate.
The Supreme Court decision ruled that under section 90C free goods, services or facilities for the “use” or “benefit” of the candidate, arranged either by them or on their behalf, must be included in an election return. In addition, and this goes to the point made by my hon. Friend, authorisation or even, it would seem, full knowledge of the candidate or agent is not required, and only active refusal might—I stress might—be the only possible defence. It is difficult to see how that could be done if the candidate or agent is unaware of the matter concerned or the costs involved.
The Electoral Commission does not come off unscathed by that Supreme Court judgment. Paragraph 28 of it states that
“the Electoral Commission's helpful guidance documents issued over several years, whilst they certainly both address the question of apportionment of expenditure between party and candidate, and deal with the concept of free or discounted services, nowhere appear to alert readers to the possible link between them, nor to the application of the notional expenditure rules to what must sometimes be a difficult exercise of separating local from national expenditure.”
Let us overlay that statement about the Electoral Commission with some of its own written output on the launch of a consultation on a new draft code of practice on 10 September 2018:
“We hope these Codes will make it easier for you to submit your own or your party’s returns, simplifying the process and removing any blurred lines that there might have been”.
It goes on:
“In responding to this consultation you’ll help us to further demystify the process and remove any confusion that you or your party may have over the process of campaign reporting.”
I think my hon. Friend has answered this question, but to pick up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), did the Electoral Commission suggest in the draft code of conduct how a candidate was supposed to know, or to be able to account for, that information in any practical way? Or did it leave that open?
My right hon. Friend highlights exactly what he might have expected, but I am afraid he will be disappointed, because that is it. There is not one additional word of guidance as to how this change of interpretation might be administered on the proper battleground of elections.
The hon. Gentleman is making an important and helpful speech. Was the issue of whether the money was national spend or local spend within a political party relevant to the finding he is describing? For example, some Conservative national spend for an individual constituency might not have been authorised by the agent. Was that the reason the decision was made in the way that it was?
The hon. Gentleman highlights the issue at stake, which is at the core of the Supreme Court judgment, but we are still left with this ambiguity as what others might do that the candidate might not know about. Matters of which the candidate has little to no knowledge, and activity that they certainly had not authorised, would have to be part of an election return.
I have great sympathy for the ordeal, as he described it, that the hon. Gentleman has gone through. We all have experience of elections and agents. The central point that he has indicated is really important: individual authorisation should be obtained from the individuals concerned. That requirement should be adhered to and, if that has not happened, that is deeply regrettable.
The hon. Gentleman makes reference to the full understanding of election law dating back to 1868 and in its various guises since. It is only now that the Supreme Court has overturned what we had all accepted as the normal happenings and procedures of election law for all these years. It has confounded many election specialists.
Let me pick up where I left off. As yet, the draft code has no statutory force. In just 51 days, we will be appointing candidates for local elections and in 80 days the local elections will be taking place throughout the country, possibly in just about every constituency. The Electoral Commission currently proposes to put thousands of local election candidates into battle with no clue as to what they should do to stay properly within the newly interpreted law.
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that these issues, with which the Electoral Commission is grappling very late in the day, have been known to us for many years? Regrettably, the Electoral Commission has dragged its feet in addressing these issues. It should do so in a way that provides clarity and certainty for people who could otherwise be liable to prosecution.
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. There is one person in this House who has been liable to prosecution: I have had the full force of that.
As I shall ask a number of times in my speech, is the Electoral Commission fit for purpose? Was the commission’s preferred interpretation of the relevant sections of the 1983 Act, which it used in support of my prosecution and, it seems, for no other obvious purpose, included in the 2015 guidance for candidates and agents? No, it does not appear anywhere. Did it find its way into the revised guidance for the 2017 general election, under which everybody in this House fought for election? No, it does not appear anywhere. Armed with the result of the Supreme Court judgment, to which the Electoral Commission was attached as an interested party, did the commission finally incorporate it into its most recent guidance for the local elections in England in May 2019? Did it incorporate within that guidance the definitive Supreme Court interpretation of sections 90C and 90ZA of the 1983 Act? I think you know the answer, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it is no. Why did the Electoral Commission intervene, at public expense, if it had no intention of advising candidates and agents, on pain of criminal prosecution, as to the proper interpretation of law following the judgment in its favour? Is the Electoral Commission incapable of speaking with itself? I ask once more: is it fit for purpose at all?
A huge grey area has now opened up. What if someone decides, without recourse to the candidate or agent for authorisation, to print and deliver thousands of leaflets saying “Vote for X”? This could cost the individual thousands of pounds, which they decide to pay themselves. Once it is printed and delivered, they inform the candidate and agent about the unwanted help that they have provided and paid for. Unknown to them is the fact that the candidate has no headroom left in their election budget for this kind of spending, which would breach the legal spending limit. The leaflets are clearly for the benefit of the candidate and they have obviously been used. They are notional, as they are free, because the third party has paid for them. The Supreme Court’s new interpretation of section 90C requires that that cost must be recorded, and in the circumstances that would breach the spending limit for the candidate and agent, with all that that might entail.
I am fortunate to have an excellent agent, Simon Ashall, who is fully trained, but—my hon. Friend has brought this issue out in his excellent and important speech—even he is in a muddle about some aspects of our current electoral law. There were 3,304 candidates at the last general election, and only a few hundred, at most, will have had a professional agent. A really good and experienced agent does not feel that he can be on top of things. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need robust and effective electoral law and regulation, but it also needs to be simplified, fair-handed and clear. I thank him for bringing this debate to the House.
I thank my hon. Friend for those robust and powerful words. As he describes, when experienced election agents treat these laws with fear, this is not a position by which any political party will be able to recruit election agents in the future. The barriers should be clear. One should know where the RPA or the PPERA kicks in. But, as my hon. Friend says, how can anybody know what cannot be known? Those are the realms that we are now in.
Candidates and agents deserve protection. There are elections in 80 days’ time and nominations for candidates close in just 51 days. I ask the Minister to act urgently, with that simple proposed statutory instrument of threeand a half lines, to bring clarity to the law and protection for all candidates and agents.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) not only for giving an excellent speech, but for making such an important contribution to this critical field. People watching this from the Public Gallery, or perhaps reading the debate later, may be surprised to learn that these issues are of such seriousness that if candidates or their agents get them wrong, there is a decent possibility that the matter will be resolved with an individual standing up in court, potentially at risk of losing his liberty, his reputation and, indeed, his livelihood. If that is the consequence, it is critical that the legal landscape is clear, and I am afraid that I respectfully agree that it is not clear.
Let me give the House just one small example of how we find ourselves in a situation where people’s campaigning activity might owe more to their appetite for risk than to the correct campaigning message. In 2017 in Cheltenham, one of the issues was whether I should be putting out a leaflet that mentioned Cheltenham repeatedly throughout. Under one view, if it was simply a national message that would apply to Cheltenham, it could be national expenditure. But under another view, it could be allocated as local expenditure. People watching this should understand that if someone gets that judgment wrong, they could end up being prosecuted for breaking their limit.
I thought that there was a risk involved in allocating that as a national spend so I declined to do so, but others took an entirely different view, mentioned Cheltenham a lot and simply allocated the spending as a national spend. It turns out, however, that the Electoral Commission has decided after the event—through these provisional codes of conduct—that circumstances where the constituency is mentioned should be classed as a local expense. Well, if that is right, the implications are absolutely enormous.
My hon. Friend has already delivered a devastating critique of the Electoral Commission, but one of my criticisms is that it is so slow to act. It knew about this situation in 2015, and yet two years later, when it came to the 2017 election, had it sorted the situation out? No. Had it provided any guidance? No. Candidates like me were simply left to fend for ourselves and make a judgment based on our appetite for risk. I had zero appetite for risk, so I took a cautious approach; others did not, and the net effect was that there was not a level playing field. If the Electoral Commission is not there to ensure a level playing field, what on earth is it there to do?
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We then have the law that is more relevant to us. It is relevant to candidates and agents across elections, no matter what their type, be they parliamentary, Assembly Member, council, mayoral or police and crime commissioner elections. I refer to the Representation of the People Act 1983, which is the legislation I would like to focus upon this evening. I wish to focus on two small sections—sections 90C and 90ZA. It was on the construction and interpretation of these two sections that the entire case against me was founded, and it is from these things that we need to learn and change. In broad terms, the 1983 Act governs candidates’ returns, spending limits, timings, agents’ and candidates’ responsibilities, and, importantly, various offences, notably against those not authorised to spend money on a campaign. There is a clear prohibition in section 75 of the Act, with punitive criminal sanctions against those who spend without the authority of the election agent.
Those small sections are detailed and they are often not understood, so I will advance to the House what they mean. Section 90ZA explains the common meaning of “election expenses”. Subsection (4) outlines the concept of “incurred and authorisation”, and this accords to the long-held view that election expenses can be so only if incurred or authorised by a candidate or agent. This interpretation, relied on by all political parties, has roots going back to 1868 legislation in another form. If not authorised, an offence can be committed by the person incurring expenses under section 75 of the Act. This seemingly clear interpretation was to prevent those who might want to interfere with an election from doing so—or else face criminal proceedings. It also provided candidates and agents with the power to control what is spent on the campaign they are legally responsible for.
Section 90C explains what to do if goods, services or facilities are provided free or at a discount, for instance, where a friendly printer provides printed material, perhaps as a party supporter. It is clear and people fully understood what it was there for; the concept was simple. The section dictates that the item, service or facility given free or at an undervalue should form part of the election expense return at a proper market value rate, subject to some simple de minimis rules.
My case passed through a long trail of court interpretations before criminal trial. At an early application to dismiss, which was rejected, we argued that the normal interpretation of section 90C—the discount or free provision—could apply towards a candidate’s election expenses only if such a good, service or facility had been properly authorised in the first place by the candidate or agent under the normal authorising provisions of section 90ZA. It has long been the understanding of colleagues in this House and experienced election law Queen’s counsel, some of whom write the textbook on election law, that the rules always intended that agents were responsible for the finances of election campaigns. Candidates will be focused on meeting electors and winning votes during the campaign period—we will all be familiar with that. The law intended agents to be involved in all the spending decisions in a campaign, either by spending themselves or permitting someone else to spend on their behalf. They, or the candidate, are meant to authorise any spending on the campaign, so that all expenditure goes through them. As a result, the agent is then liable to produce a full, “true” return of all this spending and be responsible for keeping within the legal spending limits.
The Act also takes steps to try to ensure that others are dissuaded from spending on an election campaign without this authorisation from the agent or candidate. Section 73(6) and section 75 provide for offences for people who make payments for the campaign or who spend on campaigning without the agent’s express permission. Anyone spending or making such payments without authorisation—written authorisation should be the norm—risks committing an offence. If others are willing to take the risk of committing an offence by spending or paying expenses without authorisation from the agent, that would be a criminal matter for them. This does not mean there is a free pass for people to flout spending limits by simply refusing to give authorisation for spending which others decide to incur anyway. So it is clear that the baton of the risk of illegal activity passes from the agent or candidate to the individual deciding to incur the unauthorised expense. We all have some strong and great supporters in our constituencies who are keen to help, but I expect that none would flout the wishes of the candidate and agent and decide to place themselves in jeopardy. Then there is a deterrent to third parties incurring expenses without authorisation.
The judge in an early part of my ordeal did not agree with this long-held interpretation and interpreted that the legislation should mean that anything used to the benefit of a candidate or to denigrate their opponent, used either by the candidate or, more worryingly, simply “on their behalf”, should be included in a candidate spending return, regardless of whether it was authorised or not. This was appealed to the Court of Appeal, in front of the Lord Chief Justice. That appeal was successful and the normal ground was seemingly restored.
The Crown Prosecution Service, with the Electoral Commission attaching itself as an interested party, appealed the Appeal Court decision to the Supreme Court. That appeal was heard on 23 May 2018, with judgment given on 25 July last year. In summary, that decision overturned the Appeal Court decision and has to stand as the ultimate authority on the interpretation of sections 90C and 90ZA of the 1983 Act.
So, we have an acknowledgement by the Electoral Commission of problems in election law and it was admonished, to a degree, by the Supreme Court.
The only reference in the draft code published in September last year to the Supreme Court judgment is a single paragraph on page 4 of a 23-page document, which is as yet without statutory force. That single paragraph says:
“This notional spending falls to be declared as election expenses in the candidate’s return even if the items provided have not been authorised by the candidate, the candidate’s agent or someone authorised by either or both of them, R v Mackinlay and others (Respondents), UKSC 42, 25 July 2018.”
That is it: this fundamental change in interpretation encapsulated in a few lines in a draft code of practice, with no guidance as to what it might mean in practice. If the hope was, to use the Electoral Commission’s words, to demystify and remove blurred lines, the Electoral Commission has comprehensively failed.
Candidates and agents need to know the risks they face. Clear warnings should be given in Electoral Commission guidance. Remember that it is candidates and agents who face criminal sanctions if spending limits are breached. Under the Supreme Court’s judgment, they lose control of spending should anyone else decide to offer their support for free, whether it is wanted or not. How can anyone hope to budget for an election campaign under such a system? We all need clarity from the Electoral Commission. It pushed for this interpretation of the law and won at the Supreme Court, so how do we deal with it in practice? At the next election, might people provide free goods and services on behalf of, say, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), or my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), to the extent that they breach their spending limits? Will we then find them massively embroiled in police investigations and court cases? There are those who may decide to take such action and spend money simply to cause chaos. The Electoral Commission has yet to step up to the plate and explain how the interpretation that it pushed for and won on in the Supreme Court will play out in practice.
I shall dwell only briefly on some of the errors that have put people to threat of financial and criminal sanction, at the doors of the commission and its guidance. The commission offers, in its own words, “bespoke advice” to campaigners and parties. Let me highlight but one recent publicised example. Vote Leave sought that bespoke advice, on offer for free, in respect of activities during the referendum campaign. It seems that Vote Leave acted on that advice and has now been accused of breaking the law—by acting on Electoral Commission advice, which is now considered to be the wrong advice. You could barely make it up.
Battle buses have probably been part of election campaigning since buses were invented. An investigation into the Conservative party concluded with a report published on 16 March 2017 and led to fines. No similar investigation was made into the use of battle buses by any other party or by any third-party campaigners. There appears to be a lack of even-handedness in the activities of the commission across much of what it does and whom it pursues. Its status and reputation are not helped when its current director of regulation has posted anti-Conservative social media messages in the past and has provided witness statements for court use against Conservatives, including me, but against no other political party.
All political parties and candidates use correx boards—we are all familiar with them in this House. They have become the usual stock in trade at all elections. These boards are rugged—we are familiar with their construction—and would last for many years, save for the inevitable criminal damage, I am sorry to say, that characterises many modern election campaigns. Across all of these documents—of 2015, 2017, and 2019—is there one word of advice on how correx boards should be treated and how criminal damage should be reconciled and accounted for? Everyone will be familiar with my answer by now—it is no. There is not one word of advice.
The Electoral Commission offered substantial evidence during my criminal trial. Its view was that correx boards should be written off and recorded in full at the first election that they are used. I can only say, “Really?” Then say so in published guidance. Let us examine what its current perceived position really means. Let us say that successful candidate X wins in a safe seat that is likely to be held for many years. That is common for many in this House. If the boards were to be expensed through the election return at the first outing, at the second outing, there would be nothing to declare because they cannot be counted twice. The new Opposition candidate at the second election would be at an immediate disadvantage on needing to buy expensive correx boards just to keep up, while the sitting MP would have a zero cost to declare, allowing a spending advantage, as budget could be used for additional leaflets or other election promotions. I ask again: is the Electoral Commission fit for purpose? Does it actually understand what it is there to regulate?
Let me give a few examples of the perversity of the law and the situation we now find ourselves in following the Supreme Court judgment. This would certainly apply should we face—heaven forbid—a premature general election. What would be the status of a supporter—or, probably more accurately, a spoiler—deciding to hire an aircraft with a trailing banner of support which is not wanted or assented to by the candidate or agent? The benefit test and the on behalf test under the Supreme Court ruling would have been met, the candidate would probably have seen it and, as such, they would need to account for it as an election cost, potentially exceeding their election budget and placing themselves under threat of prosecution under the criminal code. That would mean a loss of seat, fraud charges, a criminal record, costs and loss of any professional qualifications—potential ruination.
How would senior members of a party possibly tour the country at an election, as is the usual and expected standard practice? This would be deemed, under the benefit test under the Supreme Court, to be in support of the candidate in the particular constituency visited. The Nicola Sturgeon helicopter alone would break the budget of the candidate visited, as would the security and travel costs for the PM or the Leader of the Opposition.
I have saved the most perverse example, which is relevant to this age of digital campaigning, until last. What if a foreign national or hostile foreign Government were to spend on Facebook advertising in support of—or denigration of—a candidate but it is entirely unwanted by that candidate? The benefit and use tests under the Supreme Court ruling would have been met. If the candidate were able to obtain the cost of the advertising from Facebook and find who placed it—in itself a tall order—how many impressions would be relevant? Were the impressions seen by non-voting businesses or by minors, they would not be an election cost, but impressions viewed by those of voting age would. However, the law and Election Commission guidance state that an honest assessment needs to be made. Under the newly interpreted understanding of section 90C of the 1983 Act, an honest assessment would need to be made. Might this pitch the election expenditure over the limit, with all that follows? The double entry of election expenses requires, at all times, the identification of donors. So, madly and perversely, the candidate could find themselves in a double illegality because a second illegal activity would be deemed to have taken place by the recognition and deemed acceptance of an illegal foreign donation.
It is very easy to speak in an Adjournment debate just to have a moan, but tonight I wish to conclude with some solutions—I have a number of them. Might higher local candidate spending limits and lower national party spending limits be the answer, so that any interpretative complications at the margins would at least allow sufficient latitude for the candidate to be on the correct side of the law and spending limits? Legislative change needs to be forthcoming—it is urgent; it is needed almost within days. I have proposed a most simple and elegant solution. It is available to Ministers under a simple statutory instrument, which I recommend be passed with all haste.
Schedule 4A to the 1983 Act lists what are election expenses under part 1 and what are not election expenses under part 2—for instance, if a candidate drives themselves around in their own car. The Secretary of State has wide powers under section 15 of the Act to make orders to add or subtract from parts 1 and 2. A simple addition, in these words, to part 1 would clarify the law and revert matters to what I believe Parliament always obviously intended under the Act. It reads:
“Notwithstanding that a matter might fall to be included within Part 1”—
that is the “what is”—
“of this schedule because of section 90C of this Act”—
the deeming provision that the Supreme Court has now come to—
“it would only be deemed an election expense if section 90ZA(4) also applies.”
It is section 90ZA(4) that requires authorisation by an agent. In easy terms, this would restore, within threeand a half lines, the position that election expenses can only be so if properly authorised by a candidate, agent or somebody properly authorised by them. With this in place, we can start to unload what has been described as the compost heap of election law in due course and replace it in the longer term with legislation that is fit for purpose. But candidates and agents deserve protection right now.