Sir Nicholas Soames’s Question to the Cabinet Office Minister on the Electoral Commission Report on Vote Leave.
On a more general point, does my hon. Friend agree that one of the great glories of this sadly now diminished country was our electoral and democratic system? This example today is gross, and I say to her that if we are to retain the integrity and the trust of the voting public, the whole damn thing needs to be blown and started all over again.
I understand the seriousness of that point and the points made earlier by the hon. Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna), which were similar, but what I would just note is that the rules we are looking at in this report are rules that comprise our democracy. Our democracy comprises having such rules, among some other very important principles. In essence, our democracy is underpinned by the fact that we have such rules. That the rules were broken means that the system is in fact working; that we have a regulator that is able to conduct an investigation is one of the things that marks out the quality of our democracy. That the rules were broken does not actually mean the rules in themselves were flawed. In concluding my answer to my right hon. Friend’s question, let me say that Parliament, over the course of many years, has put in place those rules for referendums and for elections. If I heard him correctly, he asked for a wholesale reform of all of those rules. That is a very large undertaking indeed and it goes wider than the report we have before us today. I note that other investigations are ongoing, such as the Information Commissioner’s, and that ought to be looked at in the round by Parliament.
Hansard
Vol 645
No 173
Col 228