Electoral Commission

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Relevant document: Sixth Report of 2020 from the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, HC 1102.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Before I call the Leader of the House to move the motion, I should inform the House that I have not selected the amendment in the name of Mr Peter Bone.

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[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP) [V]]

I, too, add my voice of congratulations to Alastair Ross for the time he spent as an electoral commissioner. I am disappointed he has not been able to serve out a full term and contribute fully to the role of the Electoral Commission, but I believe he moved on to other things.

I have a number of points that I would like to raise, and I must say I have some sympathy with the points made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) this evening. The first point I would make is: why are we appointing someone to the Electoral Commission for a period of three years, when the Electoral Commission itself is being reviewed and could, as the hon. Member said, no longer exist by the end of this appointment’s duration? It would be much more satisfactory if the appointment had been made for a year to allow the Committee dealing with the matter in Parliament to address its affairs properly. The matter should be looked at properly. Will the Leader of the House examine that matter and consider, as was requested of him, withdrawing the motion tonight, given the public transparency and scrutiny of these appointments?

There has been absolutely no public transparency over these appointments. We are told this is the best candidate available. We are not sure whether various sifts happened in the process. There is no transparency whatever about the appointment, and that matter should be looked at. Transparency in public appointments is very important, especially when people’s elected careers and mandates can be questioned.

There are issues about whether this is a controversial appointment. This will be regarded in Northern Ireland as a controversial appointment, just because of the very nature of the person being appointed, who is a member of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour party. They therefore have political baggage. That is unfair on the gentleman in question, but that is a fact of life and we all deal with that. I have political baggage, because I am from the Unionist tradition, and those matters will be examined.

We do not know, for example, whether the Committee examined the professional conduct of the individuals in question or whether it knows about the pretty basic dealings with the Law Society. Were those matters addressed, were they examined? I do not know, because there has been no transparency in this House and no opportunity for Members, as the hon. Member for Wellingborough said, to examine any of the points of this appointment. We are not able to examine or to hold ourselves, or indeed this House, to account. The issue of how this appointment was made should be looked at, and the Leader of the House has a duty to take this matter away and to consider some of the points that are being raised.

On a wider point, I believe that there is very little public confidence left in the Electoral Commission by many of the larger parties in this House, which is why the decision must be examined. The commission wrongly reported three individuals to the National Crime Agency after the 2016 referendum, and it largely made that recommendation after a Twitter campaign against those individuals. The hon. Member for Wellingborough quite rightly said that people were persecuted. Just think of it: a publicly funded body in the United Kingdom made recommendations to the National Crime Agency, which led to the persecution of people. It led to the persecution of Liz Bilney. It led to the persecution of Andrew Wigmore. It led to the persecution of Arron Banks. Careers were put on hold and businesses were questioned and challenged all because of a narcissistic, axe-grinding campaign against those who organised Vote Leave. The Electoral Commission cannot wash its hands of those career-wrecking decisions.

I understand that those individuals had to spend upwards of a quarter of a million pounds in defending themselves. They then ended up with an apology and were just dismissed and told to go away: “Oh, we got it wrong. We persecuted you. We wrecked your jobs. We wrecked your careers.” The hon. Member for Wellingborough mentioned that bank accounts were closed and put on hold. “Well, we did all that to you and your family, but we will just say sorry and let it go on from here.” That is not good enough.

It is right and proper that we should be able to hold to account those members being appointed. After one of the most important electoral decisions in the history of this nation—certainly in the history of modern times—are they content with how the Electoral Commission behaved and will they instigate change in how the Electoral Commission behaves? There has been no effort to scrutinise how the Electoral Commission member would avoid any of the political activity or any of the conflicts of interest that would ultimately arise as they have arisen in the past. If the Electoral Commission cannot be trusted on the biggest election in our recent history, in the referendum, this issue really does require scrutiny. I urge the Leader of the House to bring it back.

An allegation of dark money was made to the Electoral Commission in relation to my own party, because we dared to be part of a nationwide campaign. Because the allegations were made on Twitter and on social media, the Electoral Commission thought it had to run with them and bow to them and push for those investigations. It took months for those issues to be dismissed, when they should have been dismissed out of hand.

I must say that the way that this commission is structured allows for the fuelling of these attacks on people. It has taken months for it to investigate people—to be a judge, a jury and an executioner itself. Effectively, it acts with the same carte blanche that the Star Chamber would have used in years gone by. All of this needs to be reformed. If we are in the process of considering these matters of reform, why are we in the process of appointing people who do not have the full confidence of the House, not in themselves but in terms of how the process of appointment is actually taking place? We need to encourage public confidence in this matter, not encourage public concern, and I do fear that tonight’s motion drives public concern.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I apologise that the video link went down, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that he came through loud and clear.