Political Parties and Elections Bill — Parliamentary candidates can keep their home addresses secret — 2 Mar 2009 at 21:00

The majority of MPs voted, without any debate,^[1] to add a new clause to the Political Parties and Elections Bill^[2] that makes the following changes to the rules for running Parliamentary elections:^[3]

• In Rule 6 (Nomination of candidates), the candidate's home address shall no longer appear on the nomination paper, but instead on a separate sheet of paper that may also contain a statement that it should not be made public.
• In Rule 11 (Right to attend nomination), the returning officer is no longer allowed to let anyone, except the other candidates, their election agent or their proposers, to see the page containing the home address.
• In Rule 14 (Publication of statement of persons nominated), those candidates who have declared their addresses shall not be made public will only be listed with the constituency in which their home address is located.
• New Rule 53A (Destruction of home address forms): the returning officer shall destroy each candidate's home address form three weeks after the election

Julian Lewis, the MP who sponsored this new clause, had earlier sponsored a change to the Freedom of Information Act to exempt the disclosure of MP's addresses, their travel plans, how much they spend on security, and the identities of people who deliver goods to them^[4] for fear that "a self-taught follower of al-Qaeda... goes on the internet, conveniently finds 646 addresses and sends 646 packages containing something explosive, horrible or, at the very least, abusive to 646 unprotected mail boxes"^[5] having already come to terms with the fact that "if someone who is targeting a particular MP and means to track him or her down in order to do him or her harm puts in enough effort, it will be possible to do so."^[5]

In the aftermath of this vote there was such disquiet among some MPs about the apparent irregularities on how it had been handled to the extent that two further divisions were called on minor and consequential amendments.^[6][7] Following this debate about the lack of a debate and appeals to the Chair to do something about it,^[8] Julian Lewis put on record the fact that "although both the Government and the Opposition treated this free vote as a free vote, the Liberal Democrats whipped all their Members to vote one way."

• [1] David Heath MP, House of Commons, 2 March 2009
• [2] Julian Lewis MP, House of Commons, 2 March 2009
• [3] Parliamentary Election Rules, Schedule 1, Representation of the People Act 1983
• [4] MPs succeed in fight for addresses secrecy, Press Association, 17 July 2008
• [5] Julian Lewis MP, House of Commons, 3 July 2008
• [6] Home address must be correct, Division 46
• [7] Candidate becoming own election agent does not disclose address, Division 47
• [8] David Heath MP, House of Commons, 2 March 2009
• [9] Julian Lewis MP, House of Commons, 2 March 2009

Further reading

• Candidates’ addresses on the ballot paper - research paper
• Consultation over the change
• 17 July 2008 debate on the The Freedom of Information (Parliament and National Assembly for Wales) Order 2008

Debate in Parliament | Source |