Party finance Bill

 

Our response to the Political Parties and Elections Bill

Following the Government’s White Paper on Party Finance, the Political Parties and Elections Bill (PPE Bill) was introduced to Parliament in July 2007.

In our response to the Bill (September 2008) (PDF)  we welcomed the proposals to strengthen the Commission by providing it with wider investigative powers and a more flexible range of sanctions, to be used when the rules on party and election finance are broken. We also raised concern about some of the proposals to change with make up of the Commission.   The Bill was given a carry over motion to proceed during the 2008-9 Parliamentary session.

In November 2008 the Commission gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee, during Committee stages of the Bill. During the Report/Third Reading stages of the Bill, which took place in November the Government introduced an amendment to the Bill to which provides for the introduction of Individual Electoral Registration, which we have been calling for since 2003.

The PPE Bill is currently before the House of Lords.

Briefings issued by the Commission during various Parliamentary stages of the Bill are provided below:

Lords

Report

• Our briefing notes - Lords Report Stage - 15 and 17 June 2009 (PDF)
  
• Our additional briefing notes on amendments to the Bill - Lords Report Stage - 15 and 17 June 2009 (PDF)
  

Committee

• Our briefing notes on Lords Grand Committee days 1-2 (PDF)
• Our briefing notes on Lords Grand Committee days 3-5 (PDF)

Second reading

• Our biefing paper for Peers for the second reading debate on 18 March (PDF).

Commons

Second Reading

• Our briefing on the Bill (September 2008) (PDF)

Committee

Commission Briefing Notes to the Bill Committee (11 November 2008):

Our briefing paper on Clauses 1 to 7 and Schedules 1 and 2 of the Bill (PDF) (11 November 2008)

Our briefing paper on Clauses 12 and 13 and New Clauses 1, 7, 8 14, 15, 17 to 20 of the Bill (PDF) (13 November 2008)

Our briefing paper on Clauses 8 to 11, Schedule 3, New clauses 3, 4, 9 to 13, 16, 20, 22 and 23 and New Schedule 1 of the Bill (PDF) (20 November 2008)

Commission evidence to the Bill Committee:

Our written evidence to the Public Bill Committee 

Our oral evidence to the Public Bill Committee 

Follow up memorandum (in response to issues arising during our oral evidence session

Memorandum of the Commission's intended use of its investigatory powers

Please note that clause numbers have changed due to new clauses being introduced into the updated version of the Bill as amended at Public Bill Committee. For ease of reference the following table shows where this is the case: Table of Clauses (PDF)

Update on the Political Parties and Elections Bill as amended in Public Bill Committee (PDF)

Report

• Report Stage Day 1: Our briefing on day one of the report stage (PDF)
• Report Stage Day 2: Our briefing on day two of the report stage (PDF)

Further information

• You may be interested to read: our full response to the White Paper (PDF).(July 2008)
• Our proposed approach to investigation and enforcement (PDF) (January 2009) in light of proposals made in the Bill.