"My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord has indicated, this amendment on constituency limits is a significant revision of the amendment passed by your Lordships but rejected by the Commons. It leaves out the first part of our previous amendment in order to meet the reasons for disagreement as …..." Lord Bishop of Oxford - View Speech
"My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for his words and welcome the idea of a round-table conference where some of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, can be addressed. There seems to be no substantial difference between us, except for the fact that it …..." Lord Bishop of Oxford - View Speech
"My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord has indicated, this is about the exclusion of background staff costs from regulated expenditure. First, let me emphasise that campaigning groups fully support the idea of a wider range of activities being brought within the scope of regulation than were originally in …..." Lord Bishop of Oxford - View Speech
"I was aware of the noble and learned Lord’s point, and I was going to come to it. I take that point—he said quite unequivocally that he did not expect campaigning groups to log all those small items—but the fact is that they are expected under the Bill to take …..." Lord Bishop of Oxford - View Speech
"I thank the noble and learned Lord and the other speakers who have spoken in this short debate. I was very glad to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that he is more sympathetic to this amendment than he was to our previous one. I hold out hope that …..." Lord Bishop of Oxford - View Speech
"I thank the noble Lord. However, the issue is primarily one of bureaucracy. We can see the kind of muddle there is because the noble Lord, Lord Martin, said that of course telephone calls and e-mails and the costs of those can be accounted for, while the noble and learned …..." Lord Bishop of Oxford - View Speech
"My Lords, I recognise the great importance of constituency limits, and believe that there should be real restraints in place to stop large sums of money distorting an election result at constituency level. There is therefore no disagreement about the purpose of this clause. However, as the original draft did, …..." Lord Bishop of Oxford - View Speech
"The noble Lord knows that I value simplicity even more than he does. Would he not agree that it was right to try to respond to what the Minister said about the distribution of leaflets, and that if you were doing that, you had to try to define what was …..." Lord Bishop of Oxford - View Speech