Report stage, 3rd reading in the Commons
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Mr. SpeakerCrossbench- Quote
- With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendments (a) to (c). Government amendment 94. Amendment 126, in clause 8, page 6, line 2, after ‘£5,000’, insert ‘plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 95. Amendment 125, page 6, line 3, leave out ‘£1,000’ and insert ‘£3,000 plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 96. Amendment 123, page 6, line 7, after ‘£5,000’, insert ‘plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Amendment 122, page 6, line 12, leave out ‘best of individuals’ and insert ‘individual’s reasonable’. Government amendment 97. Amendment 127, page 6, line 18, after ‘£5,000’, insert ‘plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 98. Amendment 124, page 6, line 35, leave out ‘£1,000’ and insert ‘£3,000 plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 99. Amendment 121, page 6, line 38, at end insert— ‘(6A) A person does not commit an offence if, in the reasonable opinion of the Commission, the person had no intention of making, or by innocent mistake made, a false declaration under this section’. Amendment 8, in schedule 3, page 38, line 19, at end insert— ‘Schedule 6 of the 2000 Act (details to be given in donation reports) A1 (1) In paragraph 2 of Schedule 6 to the 2000 Act (details to be given in donation reports), after paragraph (b) of sub-paragraph (10), there is inserted— “(c) the names and addresses of all the members of and donors donating £5,000 or more annually to the association.”. (2) In paragraph 2 of Schedule 6A to the 2000 Act (details to be given in transaction reports), after paragraph (b) of sub-paragraph (10), there is inserted— “(c) the names and addresses of all members of and donors donating £5,000 or more annually to the association.”. (3) In paragraph 2A of Schedule 6A to the 2000 Act (details to be given in transaction reports), after paragraph (b) of sub-paragraph (11), there is inserted— “(ba) the names and addresses of all the members of and donors donating £5,000 or more annually to the association;”’. Government amendment 100. Amendment 128, in schedule 3, page 38, line 24, after ‘£5,000’, insert ‘plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 101. Amendment 129, page 38, line 26, leave out ‘£1,000’ and insert ‘£3,000 plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 102. Amendment 130, page 38, line 30, after ‘£5,000’, insert ‘plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 103. Amendment 131, page 38, line 32, leave out ‘£1,000’ and insert ‘£3,000 plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 104. Amendment 132, page 39, line 3, after ‘£5,000’, insert ‘plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 105. Amendment 133, page 39, line 5, leave out ‘£1,000’ and insert ‘£3,000 plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 106. Amendment 134, page 40, line 18, after ‘£5,000’, insert ‘plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 107. Amendment 135, page 40, line 23, after ‘£5,000’, insert ‘plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 108. Amendment 136, page 40, line 36, after ‘£5,000’, insert ‘plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 109. Amendment 137, page 42, line 2, after ‘£5,000’, insert ‘plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 110. Amendment 138, page 42, line 7, after ‘£5,000’, insert ‘plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’. Government amendment 111. Amendment 139, page 42, line 20, after ‘£5,000’, insert ‘plus an annual upwards-only indexation allowance’.
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The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw)Independent- Quote
- None of us would be here.
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Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind)Independent- Quote
- The right hon. Gentleman must be cognisant of the level of public distrust that there is in this place, and particularly in political parties campaigning locally. An amount of £200 is not seen as an insignificant sum, and £500 is a considerable sum. Why is he pushing the matter so far? Why is a 250 per cent. increase proposed, which can only reduce transparency for local people? People in Castle Point want to know who is funding the Castle Point Tories and Castle Point Labour party. Those people may be developers or businesses; they may have a vested interest in what goes on in local government and in this place.
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- Bob SpinkIndependent
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- I am delighted that the Minister has allowed me to intervene again in order to explain that I belong to no party. I am an independent, so I have no workers. I take no money whatever from any businesses, political parties or developers, or from anyone else, and I will deliver no favours to anyone after the election. If he thinks that those people give their hard-earned cash to political parties in order to return a particular candidate without expecting their pound of flesh at the end of the day, he probably believes in the tooth fairy as well.
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Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)Scottish National Party- Quote
- The Minister is proposing to increase what is permissible by 150 per cent. Has he taken into account the Electoral Commission’s concerns about that, given that people may be able to make quite substantial donations regularly, thereby compromising transparency?
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Martin Linton (Battersea) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- Is my right hon. Friend not concerned that foreign residents, such as Sean Connery, who are currently unable to make donations to political parties would now be able to make donations of amounts of less than £500, which could amount to quite a lot over the course of a year?
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Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- I have a lot of sympathy with what the Minister is trying to do; there is a burden involved, and there are many decent people who want to give relatively modest sums and who have no wish to influence an individual candidate or policy. Will he help the House by explaining how he arrived at the figure of £500? Was the decision based on some sort of rule of thumb?
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- Bob SpinkIndependent
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- Was any research done into the sums that ordinary people—the volunteers, the grass-roots workers—give to a party? I recollect that it is usually between £20 and £100, and that the sums that businesses and developers give to political parties are in the £200 to £500 bracket. I suggest to the Minister that many grass-roots people will give small sums of up to £200, while the number of people giving £300, £400 or £500 is extremely limited. Why should not the public know who those people are, so that the public can hold their elected officials to account for the money that they receive?
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Mr. Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)Non-affiliated- Quote
- I agree with everything the Minister says about the need for a balance between compliance and transparency. Will he be prepared to share with the House the advice that he no doubt will have received from the Labour party’s accounting officer on the dangers of imposing excessive burdens that will come with a low threshold? I am to some extent aware of what such advice is likely to have been and I think it would be helpful to have it as a matter of public record.
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- Bob SpinkIndependent
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- I believe that indexation as proposed in the Opposition amendments would complicate the Bill and lead to a lack of clarity. It would also add very small, insignificant sums that would not substantially change the position on party funding or the complex process that donors must undergo. In fact, it would change things very little and would only introduce massive complexity. Tiny percentages would be added, creating a rather strange figure for the Electoral Commission to monitor, at a time when we are increasing these sums by massive percentages—150 per cent., or 50 per cent.—which would wipe out the impact of any indexation over a very long period. Does the Minister not think that the Opposition parties are trying to have cream on their sticky buns?
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Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- Remind us.
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- Chris RuaneLabour
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- How much?
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James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend, East) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- I fear the Minister may be losing his way. Although I disagree with his history lesson, which was somewhat more enjoyable than sitting on the Bill’s Committee, despite that being enjoyable too, I welcome his concession on indexation. Will he outline the methodology for his approach in the Lords to overcome some of the problems of indexation that have been mentioned—such as the small increases—so that we do not have to come back to those issues, as we have had to do since the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, with the 25 per cent. increase, and can allow for the sensible increase the Minister proposes?
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Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- Many times today I have heard my right hon. Friend talk about consensus, reaching the right balance and the rest of it, but given the impression that some Labour Members have, and bearing in mind the decision that was reached when we last debated the Bill, may I suggest that we should not surrender too much? Otherwise, it is not consensus; surrender would be a more appropriate word. I hope that my right hon. Friend bears that in mind when he says that he will consider other aspects of the matter.
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James Brokenshire (Hornchurch) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- The Minister is making an important point, not just about the methodology and what rate or index is used, but about the method by which it would be implemented. Does he agree that there is some merit in setting out in the Bill the approach that is to be taken? We are considering transparency, and are seeking not to give the impression that things are being hidden away or swept under the carpet. However, sometimes simply putting the information in a statutory instrument may inadvertently give an impression that that is happening. Perhaps the best way to emphasise transparency is to express the information as clearly as we can in the Bill.
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Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- On indexation, my right hon. Friend has already talked about simplicity, and we are all well aware that most political parties are run almost purely by volunteers. May I put it to him that when he considers what indexation regime to introduce, he should consider indexing only once in the lifetime of each Parliament? Volunteers in particular get a figure in their head and then do not move with the times. I understand that; it is not their job to do so—they are volunteers. We could make the change once each Parliament—perhaps, say, within two months of a general election. That would have the virtue of simplicity, which would assist volunteers.
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- Bob SpinkIndependent
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- I am not consoled or persuaded at all. In fact, I am deeply concerned that, yet again, the Opposition parties are seeking to relax the high standards to which political parties and donors are to be held. Those standards are intended to ensure that what they do is transparent and available to the public. The public will look at the House with deep suspicion and wonder where the Opposition parties are coming from. Why do they not want to be held to account? Why do they want to create little loopholes and escape routes for their friends, to enable them improperly to give more money to political parties?
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- Bob SpinkIndependent
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- rose—
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- Bob SpinkIndependent
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- Amendment 121 would insert an escape clause, stating: “A person does not commit an offence if, in the reasonable opinion of the Commission, the person had no intention of making, or by innocent mistake made, a false declaration under this section.” Surely we are placing too much responsibility on the commissioners to judge the political climate of the time. Why would anyone want to stick an escape clause in legislation such as this? Do they anticipate that their supporters and donors will make small, inadvertent errors?
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- Bob SpinkIndependent
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- Yes.
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David Howarth (Cambridge) (LD)Liberal Democrat- Quote
- There are dangers of the sort that the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) mentions, and I hope that the Minister will take them into account when producing his own amendments. In particular, it is right to point out the danger of defining the existence of a crime according to the later opinion of the commission. That is never a correct way of framing a criminal offence.
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- Bob SpinkIndependent
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- I was making a point about the Minister’s attitude towards the Conservative amendments. I would be more sanguine about the amendments if I did not know the Conservative party’s track record in driving a coach and horses through election law and the public test of what is acceptable—for instance, by taking money from people who do not pay tax in this country to fund marginal constituencies by £20,000, £30,000 or £40,000 a year before the election is even declared. I do not want to give the Conservative party any loophole through which it can jump; nor do the public and nor do those in the media, who are watching us carefully in the House.
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- Martin LintonLabour
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- Without wishing to disagree with the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) in any way, may I say that I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement that he will introduce an amendment in the other place on the issue, and I hope that it will not simply reflect the Opposition amendment, which puts the onus on the Electoral Commission to determine what it regards as a reasonable mistake, but give some latitude to candidates to seek relief through the courts where they feel that they have made a late declaration that was unintended.
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- Rob MarrisLabour
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- I urge my right hon. Friend to resist amendment 121, which would put the onus on the commission and make life very complicated. However, I also urge him to look very carefully at amendment 122, which would change a subjective test into an objective test of whether something was an individual’s reasonable belief and would therefore make it much easier for any tribunal, court or whoever to decide whether any shenanigans had taken place. Therefore, although my right hon. Friend and the Government might not like the exact wording of amendment 122, it would tighten things and it contradicts amendment 121. We would be better with amendment 122, not amendment 121.
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Mr. Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- As the Bill stands, clause 8 creates a new requirement for a donor to make a declaration in respect of donations for a sum exceeding the specified threshold. The intention behind the clause, and the related schedule 3, is to clarify the source of donations. Essentially, transparency is the goal. Schedule 3 makes changes analogous to those made by clause 8 in relation to donations made to individuals and members’ associations so as to recognise third parties and permitted participants. Although we support the goal of transparency, earlier in the Bill’s passage we had many concerns about the provision. In particular, we were concerned to ensure that small donations were not subject to a potentially burdensome and demanding declaration system. After much negotiation and effort, we have, thankfully, made great progress since then, particularly in increasing the thresholds for declaration from the low original sum of £200. In this day and age, using that sum was particularly out of touch. The Government have also removed the unworkable requirement that parties verify the donation. In combination with the £200 threshold, that requirement would have made the administration of donations almost impossible. It was agreed by all, including the Electoral Commission, that amendments increasing the thresholds and removing the verification requirement were the way forward. Again, the verification requirement would have placed a great burden on local and national party officers alike. Of greatest concern was the potential impact on local party officers. As the Minister said, they are frequently volunteers, and we felt that the Bill in the form considered in Committee risked permanently discouraging those at the grass roots of politics from engaging with the political system. Even for lawyers or experts in money laundering, the requirement would have been almost unworkable, let alone for busy unpaid local volunteers. When the Bill went into Committee, any donation of more than £200 would have come within its ambit. That would have resulted in approximately 100,000 declarations being required in relation to Conservative party donations alone, leading to an administratively unworkable work load. As a result, we felt that the political system would be damaged, rather than enhanced. After much effort in Committee, the thresholds were increased to £5,000 at national level and £1,000 at local level. We still had concerns, however. It is a simple fact that political parties need funds to fulfil their democratic roles, and the thresholds are still set at a lower level than we had expected. Fortunately, the Government have come back again and admitted that the clause is still deficient, and have tabled these amendments that we are discussing today. Government amendments 94 to 111 and new clause 19 are a response to widespread objections to the surprisingly low thresholds for declaration originally proposed in the Bill. The Government amendments increase the sums to £7,500 for donations made nationally and £1,500 for donations made locally. I shall return to the thresholds in discussing our amendments. I can confirm that we are reasonably satisfied with the national threshold, but that we have tabled amendments to increase the local threshold from the £1,500 proposed by the Government to the more appropriate figure of £3,000. We had considered increasing this figure to match the national threshold, as that would have been simpler for all concerned, but £3,000 is where we are at on this issue. New clause 19, which addresses the so-called “permissibility threshold”, serves two important purposes. First, it introduces further consistency to the 2000 Act by amending relevant sections so that the figures are in line with the proposed increased thresholds in amendments 94 to 111. Secondly, it increases the recordable threshold to £500 from £200—another improvement. As it stands, part IV of the 2000 Act imposes restrictions on the sources of donations; it prevents certain foreign and anonymous donations to political parties and makes registered parties subject to reporting requirements when in receipt of donations of more than a certain value. The new clause serves to amend the relevant sections of PPERA, specifically in part IV, and the related schedules 7, 7A, 11 and 15. The Act specifies which payments or services to a party are not to be regarded as a donation and are therefore not subject to any requirements—any donation of £200 or less is to be disregarded. The new clause amends the sum, increasing it to £500. Accordingly, any donation of £500 or less would not be subject to the regime. The increased figure serves a number of goals, and the threshold, generally, is a significant one. Principally, the increased sum aims to reduce administrative burden—a reduced strain will be placed on parties in relation to less financially significant sums. The sum should also prevent donors of smaller sums—those up to the more realistic figure—from being discouraged from contributing money. I am thinking of, for instance, ticket prices for attending local fundraising events. It is important that less significant sums donated in that manner are not caught up in the complexities of this Bill. Again, I stress that we should be encouraging engagement at the grass-roots level of politics; by having a higher level, we carve out individuals who are involved at the base level of politics and who are in no way targets of the legislation. It is sensible to remove entirely from any such conversation those lower sums. I am sure that all hon. Members will be aware that the voluntary levels of party structures and local fundraising are normally entirely divorced from the more complex upper echelons of party funding. Furthermore, as the Minister has pointed out, it should not be forgotten that the PPERA provisions that set the £200 level were debated almost a decade ago. Given the time lag, there is a need for a more valid and fair level at which to disregard the potentially oppressive PPERA restrictions. Although we approve of increasing the threshold, we remain concerned that £500 is not enough. That sum is still very low in the grand scheme of party financing, and for the reasons I have highlighted, extra caution should be exercised to ensure that minor donations do not end up falling within the ambit of this substantial and intimidating—for individuals—legislation. Although we appreciate that the Government have attempted to address these widespread concerns, new clause 19’s changes to part IV of the 2000 Act may not go far enough; a greater sum of £1,000, for example, might be more appropriate. As the Minister said, this is a matter of judgment and balance. The potential for excessive burden does not extend solely to the donor; in particular, I draw hon. Members’ attention to the potential for requirements to be placed on local volunteers in relation to small donations that nevertheless remain above the proposed level of £500. The accounting rules are extremely technical and complex, as is even the guidance produced on the rules. In addition, we need to consider the fact that, because of the voluntary nature of local associations, many of those responsible for accounting are volunteers. Again, I suggest that it is sensible to remove entirely the possibility of an unnecessary burden being placed on donors and volunteers; extending the threshold to a sum such as £1,000 would ensure that there was far less room for doubt.
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- Martin LintonLabour
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- Does the hon. Gentleman agree that raising the level to £1,000 would make it relatively easy for a donor making a weekly donation of that sum to give £50,000 without it even showing up on the radar of the political parties legislation? Would that not open the door to large-scale donations that would go unrecorded and unreported?
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- I do not think that that can happen, because it is a catch-all provision. However, we are not opposed conceptually to anti-avoidance provisions. I am talking about the good guys who want to give money for the right reasons, not the loopholes, which we would be happy to see addressed.
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- Martin LintonLabour
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- But this provision would create a loophole, because it would set the recording level. The recipient of donations of as much as £999 would not even be obliged to write down the name of the donor on a piece of paper. The donor could be someone from overseas, and they would be able to make large donations.
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- My understanding is that there are anti-avoidance provisions. Taking the hon. Gentleman’s point at face value, the same problem could be held to exist for a limit of £500, £200 or any other amount. If the anti-avoidance provisions need to be tightened up, we would not be averse to considering that. If the threshold were extended to £1,000, there would be less room for doubt. It has already become increasingly difficult to recruit and retain volunteers, but we need to encourage enthusiasm for politics at a local level. In that context, I do not understand the Electoral Commission’s concerns that the Government’s proposed increase has the potential to reduce confidence in the transparency and integrity of party and election finance. From previous conversations, we know that the Government have an open mind on this issue, and it may be that their low-bid amendment reflects the concern held by the Electoral Commission. When it comes to setting a level, however, I would argue that it is a matter for Parliament to decide the limit. While we accept new clause 19, we are concerned that the permissibility threshold is reviewed further in the later stages of the Bill. Our amendments 124, 125, 129, 131 and 133 would increase the threshold for local donations to £3,000 from the current level of £1,500. They would also provide for indexation, about which we are concerned because of the likely high levels of inflation as we come out of Labour’s recession. Such sums can look out of kilter after only a few years. I should note that we have tabled other amendments, such as amendments (a), (b) and (c) to new clause 19, which would provide for indexation for all the threshold figures in the Bill. The declaration requirement is considerable and should be required only in the case of considerable donations. Smaller donations, which will comprise the majority in number, should be less rigorously regulated. Increasing the reporting threshold figure to £3,000 would remove the lower-level donations from the ambit of the Bill and further reduce the administrative burden locally.
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- Rob MarrisLabour
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- I do not understand, especially given the state of the world economy and the prospect of deflation haunting us, why the hon. Gentleman is talking about upwards-only indexation. That seems strange to me.
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- We have provided that indexation should be upward only on the basis that to date none of the thresholds has been reduced. If the hon. Gentleman is concerned about complexity, I put it to him that having an upward and downward measure would certainly increase the amount of complexity involved.
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- Rob MarrisLabour
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- It would not do so if the Government adopted the excellent proposal that someone made earlier—that the adjustment should be made only once in each Parliament. In that case, the complexity for the individual volunteer would be the same whether the figure was £450 or £550 or stayed at £500. It is no more complex to adjust to a figure going from £500 to £450 than it is to adjust to one that has gone from £500 to £550.
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- The hon. Gentleman has made his point, which is worth looking at. We would not be averse to debating his proposal along with others that will hopefully be considered in the context of the Government’s response. More specifically, an increase in the threshold would further emphasise the importance of catching the larger and more significant sums. Narrowing the ambit of the Bill would focus the commission on the more serious tasks that it faces, avoiding donors, local associations, volunteers and electoral commissioners being bogged down in misunderstandings and disputes over lesser sums. The amendments would serve three connected purposes. First, they would reduce the administrative burden for donors and parties. Again, I remind hon. Members that the measure will place a significant obligation on a great number of donors. Secondly and simultaneously, an increased limit would emphasise the importance of declarations of larger donations. That would ensure that an appropriate level of scrutiny was applied to the more significant sums. Indeed, it is in relation to the larger sums that suspicious and offending activity is most likely to take place. Finally, an increased limit would remove the discouraging requirements in relation to smaller donations. Accordingly, fewer people donating at the very important grass-roots level would feel exposed to the declarations regime and such people would therefore not be discouraged from giving. We must avoid pushing interested persons further away from political engagement by importing complex legal requirements into the local party funding scheme. The wrong that the measure is intended to tackle is very far departed from the vast majority of scenarios involving sums under £3,000. If we succumb to the temptation to over-regulate, we will succeed only in taking the political system further away from the general public. In this way, we will defeat some of the Bill’s key goals in the process. By tabling their own increases, the Government have shown that they support the principle behind increased thresholds. We therefore believe that the further increase introduced by our amendments would reinforce the theme of the Bill, rather than detract from it. The Minister’s acknowledgement of the fairness of our £3,000 proposal is welcome. In the light of his kind offer, we shall not press the amendment to a Division. We look forward to seeing the Government amendments in the other place. I take the Minister’s point on certain technical issues that he mentioned, which his draftsmen will no doubt address in their drafting of his amendments. As I stated, clause 8 creates a new responsibility for donors to political parties to declare any outside source of a donation. Although I repeat our support for the concept of transparency, there must be sensible limits in place to protect the vast majority of honest and genuine participants in the democratic process. The general impact of clause 8 could be costly in both time and money for parties locally. It is at this most fundamental and important level that such burdens are most heavily felt. Bearing in mind this negative potential, our amendment 121 seeks to provide a positive defence for those who have made an innocent mistake. As we have emphasised throughout our deliberations, this is a complex Bill and it may prove easy innocently to fall foul of the law in PPERA. Even a brief review of the provisions on a declaration reveals the lack of certainty for a lay person—for example, the concept of “value of the benefit” and the provision of a benefit “in connection with” a donation. Although we do not dispute the need for such provisions, it is important to ensure that a positive defence is in place if the complex measures are unwittingly not complied with. By including the commission in the process, amendment 121 aims to place adequate and specialised scrutiny on any person who asserted the defence. By positively confirming that the defence exists, we can ensure that the Bill is in kilter with other legislation that creates criminal offences. It is important to remember that guilt of a criminal offence, with the obvious stigma attached, is at stake. As it stands, the drafting of proposed section 54A(6) to the 2000 Act does not adequately address our concerns. It merely states: “A person who knowingly or recklessly makes a false declaration under this section commits an offence.” There is no confirmation that a person would not commit an offence in the case of an innocent mistake. From our perspective, the drafting of section 54A(5), as proposed in clause 8(2), is not sufficiently prescriptive in that respect. The Bill is silent, and might unfairly cast a doubt over the honesty of an innocent person. There may be a lack of clarity about how the law works in practice, especially when the legislation is first enacted. As such, it seems fair positively to provide a clear defence.
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- Rob MarrisLabour
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- The hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong, but according to my recollection, he is a lawyer; in fact, I believe that he still moonlights as one. I suggest to him that amendment 122 would change a subjective test into an objective one, and that amendment 121 would introduce a subjective test. He is proposing contradictory amendments that would create great complexity. Were both amendments agreed to, we would end up with the replacement of a subjective test by an objective test and then the reintroduction of a subjective test.
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- That is not the case, because the defences are different. They are not put together. Let me continue my line of thought; the hon. Gentleman can then come back, if he likes. I should like to draw a comparison with section 167 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which shows the point that we are making. It stated that when a person had to be charged with an offence under its provisions, they could apply to the High Court, an election court or other court as appropriate for relief from liability, on the grounds that “the act or omission arose from inadvertence or from accidental miscalculation or from some other reasonable cause of a like nature, and in any case did not arise from any want of good faith”. The 1983 Act is an effective example of our amendment in practice. We tabled a near-identical amendment in Committee, but the Minister dismissed it. He said: “Hon. Members spoke about the 1983 Act, but that framework was replaced by the 2000 Act…We do not believe that the amendment is necessary, but of course we hear the concerns about the dangers of an overzealous approach to enforcement—of the minor, technical breaches.”––[Official Report, Political Parties and Elections Public Bill Committee, 20 November 2008; c. 379.] The 1983 Act may have been replaced, but that does not mean that it is not a good example of what we want to get to. The Minister concedes that there is a concern about an over-zealous approach by the commission and that we should address that concern by clarifying the defence. We should act now to avoid the dangers that we have identified and that the Minister has confirmed. There should be no harm in adding this extra layer of protection. Perhaps the technical point that the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) made earlier is valid, but I say here and now that the Conservative party has been the only one to have supported the concept of an innocent mistake—and we are sticking by it. I am pleased that the Minister seems to be coming around to our way of thinking.
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- He did, and I congratulate him on having done so, but he was not speaking from the Front Bench, unless I am mistaken; the Minister may wish to put me right on that. The Electoral Commission seems to have concerns about the amendment. It says that it could considerably weaken the eligibility of declarations made under clause 8. However, I put it to the commission that we need a mechanism to deal with the issue. To that extent, the policy of straight rebuttal that the Minister advanced in Committee was not productive. However, he seems to have made a significant about-turn on the issue, at least in general terms; I was heartened by what he said. Nevertheless, so far there have been no specifics, so we will press amendment 121 to a Division at the appropriate stage this afternoon.
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- I am thankful for the Minister’s putting the record straight. That makes it more important that we request a Division on amendment 121. Amendment 122 would change the requirement for a declaration under new section 54A(1) to be made “to the best of the individual’s knowledge and belief” by inserting a less oppressive requirement of “reasonable” knowledge. As it stands, the Bill imposes a considerable obligation on the donor by requiring them to apply the highest level of their knowledge and belief in stating whether subsection (2) applies. Subsection (2) applies if another person has provided the donor with money or another benefit in excess of the threshold in subsection (2)(b). It therefore has two layers: the fact of the provision and the value of the provision. In the case of the latter, subsection (2)(b) applies if the “value of the benefit” exceeds the threshold. Satisfying that requirement could be especially difficult. Likewise, it may be equally tough to apply one’s best knowledge in deciding whether another person has provided a benefit “in connection with the making of the donation”. That is emphasised by the lack of an obligation in the Bill for the commission to provide guidance on valuing benefits, so the potential to catch out honest donors is considerable. The provision implies that the person must use all efforts to ascertain whether a vague link or high value of an obscure benefit requires a declaration. When we consider the sanction for failure in this respect, we see that that is a tough standard to satisfy. In short, the provision can serve only to discourage donations and engagement with the political system. I remind the Minister that he accepted the principle at stake in Committee, where he said: “Of course reasonableness is important. For instance, when someone is required to give an opinion it should be a reasonable one.”––[Official Report, Political Parties and Elections Public Bill Committee, 20 November 2008; c. 371.] That being the case, why not incorporate it clearly in the Bill? This requirement is oppressive and potentially counter-productive to the wider goals of the legislation. Our amendment seeks to temper the Bill and bring it into line with the mutual expectation that reasonableness, rather than best knowledge, is the correct requirement in these circumstances.
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- James BrokenshireConservative
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- My hon. Friend, and indeed the Minister, talked about the concept of acting in good faith. To that extent, there is some commonality of approach in trying to deal with good faith actions and bad faith actions, if I may use those terms. That is difficult to frame in a legislative way. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is an issue as regards the “best endeavours” obligation—the extent to which people need to make investigations to ensure that they are satisfied—and that there is, equally, a correlation with the recklessness test that appears later on as to whether an offence is triggered? Does he agree that a combination of those steps could lead to uncertainty, which I assume relates to the good faith that he is trying to achieve?
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- My hon. Friend makes an interesting and valid point that I hope will be taken on board and considered by the Minister as he reviews the provision as a whole.
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- Rob MarrisLabour
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- As I understand amendment 121, the hon. Gentleman seeks to apply a subjective test to actions that may have taken place under new section 54A(2)(a) and (b). However, the amendment does not narrow things that much. I can see the mischief in subsection (2) that he is trying to address, but his amendment does not refer to that subsection, so it seems too widely drawn.
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- The hon. Gentleman may have a point. We presented two defences that need to be reviewed, and perhaps they are not as connected as they should be—something that we can review. He agreed conceptually with one of the defences that I advanced, and found interest in the other one as well, so we are talking along the same lines to a great extent. I agree that we would want to look at amendment 122 further as we moved on to the later stages, and that will be done in the other place.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- This is one of those odd occasions where I was in favour of the new clause the Minister was proposing until I heard his reasons for it. I could have understood an argument that said, “These figures take no account of the rate of inflation since 2000, and there is a need to stick to round figures because people do not understand small fractions, so one may as well increase the number upwards to the next round figure and leave it at that for a long time.” The figures are nine years short of where indexation would normally get us, so one could then have said, “We don’t intend to change the figures for a while.” That would be especially important given the fact that inflation is now very low—in fact, we are looking at deflation. Unfortunately, however, that was not the Minister’s argument. He suddenly came out in favour of some form of indexation and said that the figures should be increased now and then indexed. That is going too far in the direction of reducing transparency. The Minister quite rightly said that we do not have any scientific evidence about public opinion on this matter, but I caution him against making too many assumptions about whether public opinion would find what he proposes acceptable. I would be happy for him to do some research to show me that I am wrong, but to increase the figures by 50 per cent. and also to index, is to lay ourselves open to a charge that we are going too far in one go.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- I am glad to hear the Minister being suitably modest about his proposal, but I would have preferred him to have given a more positive reply to the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) to have a review only once a Parliament, given the uplift suggested in the figures. Indeed, a revision once every two Parliaments might be appropriate, given the size of the initial uplift. There is also an interaction between new clause 19 and new clause 1. In a way, it makes no sense to decide on new clause 19 until we have decided on new clause 1, because we have to decide whether transparency will be the only mechanism for controlling donations, as it currently is. Where transparency is the only mechanism, there is a very strong case indeed for making that transparency provision as strong as possible and for keeping the limits as low as possible. However, if we were to adopt a cap, that would be the primary way of maintaining the public’s confidence that—to use the Minister’s words—people are not buying influence in politics. The transparency provisions would then provide a secondary way of maintaining that confidence. In those circumstances, one might come to different conclusions about where the transparency line should be drawn. I do not intend to divide the House on new clause 19, but given what the Minister said, I am rather more worried about it now than I was when we started our consideration of it. The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) said that he would like a Division on amendment 121. However, I will not be able to support him, and not just because of the technical reason—in fact, it is far more than a technical reason; it is an important reason—that I gave in an intervention. His amendment 121 would make the commission of a criminal offence dependent on what an administrative agency later decided about the circumstances that prevailed when the defendant acted. That can never be the right way to write a criminal offence. However, that is not my only reason. Rather, I am entirely puzzled about how the defence would work in the precise circumstances that the hon. Gentleman described. As was made clear in an intervention on him, the Bill suggests that “A person who knowingly or recklessly makes a false declaration under this section commits an offence.” However, after that he wants the Bill to say that it is not an offence if, “in the reasonable opinion of the Commission, the person had no intention of making, or by innocent mistake made, a false declaration”. I just cannot see how one can knowingly make a false declaration innocently. If someone makes a false declaration and they intend it to be false, it can never be made innocently. The only circumstances that have been raised are those where someone has been reckless, but what does recklessness mean in such circumstances? It means knowingly—consciously, subjectively—not caring whether what one says is true or false. I cannot see how that can ever be done innocently either. I am afraid, therefore, that I cannot support amendment 121. The crucial question in all the amendments that we are considering is public confidence.
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- Is the hon. Gentleman therefore saying that he will not support the insertion into the Bill of any provisions to deal with innocent mistakes?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- As the Minister said, it depends what the offence is. There is scope for an innocent mistake defence where the offence is strict, or somewhat strict, in the way that it is drawn up. However, where the offence is one of knowingly or recklessly making a false statement, it is difficult to imagine any circumstances where that could be done innocently. As I said, the key criterion in all these debates is public confidence, and my doubts about new clause 19—although not enough to encourage me to divide the House—are based on precisely that issue. Will the changes maintain public confidence? My reason for opposing amendment 121 is exactly the same, because I do not think that making contradictory laws ever maintains public confidence.
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- James DuddridgeConservative
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- I welcome the Minister’s attitude towards new clause 19. As a result, my comments will be quite brief. I welcome the increased donation limits, because they will mean that political parties will be less reliant on public money, trade union money and businesses’ money, which is bound to be a good thing. I would welcome hearing from the Minister by how much he predicts overall private donations will increase as a result of the increased thresholds. Some people who now donate at a level just below the threshold will donate at a level just below the new, higher threshold. That is not for any criminal reason, or for any other reason that might make us uncomfortable. I can give the House three examples of people to whom I have spoken about this. The first is a bailiff, who wanted to contribute to a political party, but who did not want his name in the public domain, and who has a policy of keeping his name and address private. The second was a constituent who had won quite a bit of money on the national lottery, and who was conscious of the need to keep their name out of the public eye for fear of receiving unsolicited requests for donations. The third was a relatively junior civil servant who wanted to make quite a large contribution to a political party, but who felt that that might go against them in their workplace. Conversely, some people might increase the amount of money they donate because they want it to appear on the register. For example, I was considering making a £50 donation, having met Rebecca Harris, the Conservative candidate in Castle Point. That would have been below the £200 threshold. I am actually incredibly proud of wanting to make that donation, and I think that I shall increase it to £201, so that it can go on the record, as part of the attempt to bring greater democracy and accountability to Parliament, rather than having to wait until the threshold goes up to £500 to make the same point. That would also be an awful lot more expensive for my pocket. So Castle Point Conservatives can expect a £201 donation from me as a result of this debate.
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Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- We all want to make a donation.
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- James DuddridgeConservative
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- This seems to be quite popular. Perhaps I will arrange a whip-round after the debate. I am grateful to the Minister for taking on board the points that have been raised about indexation. I am slightly concerned, however, given the very useful evidence sessions and the large number of very useful Committee sittings, that the Government did not table these amendments earlier. It would have assisted them if there had been a greater gap between the evidence sessions and the Committee sittings, so that they could have tabled amendments to be considered by this House rather than another place. Sometimes, the devil is in the detail and, all things remaining equal, I can imagine the House of Lords being less aware of electoral practices, and our getting into a position in which the system becomes more complex than it needs to be. In addition to indexation, I want to talk about how the threshold is raised. I am minded to think that the idea of raising it at a general election is a good one. In that way, there would not be a problem with raising it from £500 to £512. I think that we should raise it to a round number—perhaps £550 or £600. In relation to wanting to raise the maximum amount of revenue from private individuals, will the Minister give consideration to years in which there are two general elections, as happened in 1974? Heaven forbid that we should find ourselves in that position in 15 months’ time, or before, if the country remains undecided about who they want to solve the problems that the Government have got us into. However, if we do end up in that position, we, as politicians, would surely want private individuals to be able to contribute twice the annual limit, rather than being constrained by that limit. On new clause 19, which I shall deal with before briefly concluding on amendment 121, will the Minister look at connected parties? Although I fully endorse the movement from £200 to £500, if a family of five adults all contributed a smidgeon under £500, that would amount to £2,500 and over an electoral cycle of four years—the norm, if the Government are not running scared and so go the full term—it would mean a donation of £10,000. In addition, if those five individuals living under the same roof set up an unincorporated association, they could yet again make an even larger contribution. I would appreciate it if the Minister, as well as making concessions on new clause 19, looked again at connected parties.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. New clause 1 simply introduces a £50,000 cap on donations to political parties by any particular person in any calendar year. In the long discussions about the Bill, which is supposed to be about political parties and their funding, this is the first time that we have been able to debate the central issue of whether transparency in donations—as we have discussed over the last hour and a half—is enough, or whether, as I and my party believe, there should be far stricter control than just knowing who donated money, as we need to limit the amount donated itself. Our proposals in this new clause were part of the compromise package put forward as a result of talks under the chairmanship of Sir Hayden Phillips—talks that seemed fruitful for a while, but in the end failed to produce proposals that all parties supported. However, while those talks were going on, this particular proposal for a donation cap at around £50,000 gained support on all sides, so I would be astonished if it were opposed today by parties and politicians who previously supported it.
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- Mr. StrawIndependent
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- I hope to expand on this point if I catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that Hayden Phillips made his proposal for a donation limit of £50,000 as part of a comprehensive package, which included state funding, and that he said words to the effect, “You cannot have one without the other”? I think he used the phrase, “There can be no cherry-picking; this is a comprehensive package.”
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- Sir Hayden Phillips did say that it was a comprehensive package, but I understand that the talks never got to the discussion of state funding. Later in my speech, I shall get to precisely that point, because it is important to understand exactly what effect a £50,000 cap would have on the existing parties, the extent to which it would produce a funding gap for the parties and the extent to which state funding would be required to fill that gap, if at all. If the Secretary of State will forgive me, I shall return to that. The point of a donation cap is to undermine the perception and the reality that big money buys access to political power. There is no point going through all the examples that have been thrown by one party against other parties over the past 10 or 15 years—cash or donations for peerages, changes in policy, support for this initiative or that. The bandying about of names, on all sides, gets us nowhere.
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Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- I am listening with great interest to what the hon. Gentleman has to say. Given his concern in relation about the perception that big money, as he puts it, is buying influence, why set the cap at £50,000? Surely it should be considerably lower, although the great British public at large would think even such a sum one that could influence decision making or give access to politicians.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- I was going to come to that point later, too, because my view—as well as that of my party and my party leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg)—is that to restore public confidence we will have to set the cap much lower than £50,000. We tabled an amendment in Committee, which was never discussed, that the limit should be £10,000. We have suggested £50,000 because it is what the Conservative party and its leader proposed. If the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) wants to oppose his party leader’s view, so be it, but we are trying to operate within a rough consensus that previously existed.
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- Mr. FieldConservative
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- The issue, in part, is that we, as Members of Parliament, have a limit set of 1 per cent. of our salary. We have to be transparent about any donations we have or any moneys that come in relation to any entertainment—in other words, about £620. I fail to understand why—other than purely for party political advantage to the Liberal Democrats—the hon. Gentleman wants to set a limit of £50,000, or as he now desires, £10,000. Surely the issue here is transparency, as we discussed earlier in the debate. Provided everything is transparent, surely that is the right way forward that will reassure the public that there is openness on those matters.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- No, the issue is not only transparency, but whether public confidence can be maintained solely by transparency. The conclusion that all the parties reached as part of the Hayden Phillips process was that transparency by itself was not enough. The perception that access could be bought and that donations were being given with strings could be challenged only by having a cap on the size of the donation. Throughout the debates in Committee, the Minister said—this is right—that some people give money to political parties without strings and for the good of the cause, and that that is a good thing. The trouble with that is that everyone knows that sometimes the money is given, or offered, not for that purpose but in return for the prospect of access or in return for influence. The question of perception is vital to the issue before us.
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Tony Lloyd (Manchester, Central) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- The hon. Gentleman will be aware that I have an interest as chair of the trade union group of Labour MPs, but does he not recognise that there is a fundamental difference between the donations of an individual and the donations of a corporate body such as a trade union that operates collectively, which consist of small contributions from many people? The passing of the new clause would thus do real damage to the historic relationship—of which, admittedly, the hon. Gentleman may not approve—between my party and the trade unions.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- I was going to deal with that point later, but let me make something absolutely clear now. Hayden Phillips also said that there must be a fair way of dealing with the relationship between the Labour party and the unions. I do not seek to undermine the existence of the Labour party through any measure that I propose today. A later group contains a new clause which I hope will deal with the question in a fair way by distinguishing between donations from trade unions and affiliation fees that are in reality—this meets the hon. Gentleman’s point at least to some extent—the agglomeration of many small donations. I am perfectly happy to allow that situation to continue, as long as the trade union itself makes clear to its members that they can choose whether or not to donate to a political party.
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- Tony LloydLabour
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- rose—
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Hilary Armstrong (North-West Durham) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- rose—
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- If I can be allowed to finish this point, I will let hon. Members intervene afterwards. I propose that the trade unions follow a code of practice issued by the Electoral Commission relating to information that they give their members about their ability to opt out of the political fund, including information about what members must do to opt out, and what was done with the money paid into the fund in recent years. As long as the code of practice was followed, I should be happy to allow affiliation fees to continue to be paid as they are now.
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- Tony LloydLabour
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- This goes to the heart of the debate. Although the hon. Gentleman—supported by the Scottish nationalists, incidentally—says that he does not wish to attack the link between the unions and the Labour party, his new clause would have precisely that effect. The hon. Gentleman may honestly argue that he sees a distinction, but he should bear in mind that many trade union members, even those affiliated to the Labour party, do not contribute to the political fund and thus do not contribute to the Labour party, because union membership is not synonymous with support for the Labour party, either political or financial. The distinction that the hon. Gentleman thinks he draws does not exist, and, what is more, his new clause in its present form would damage the Labour party. He may say that that is not his intention, but he should understand that the new clause would do precisely what he claims that he does not want to do.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- If the hon. Gentleman looks at new clause 8, he will see the overall intention of the Liberal Democrats. To some extent, it is unfortunate that the grouping of the new clauses means that new clause 1 is being considered alone, so I concede the technical point that new clause 1 without new clause 8 would indeed have the effect of stopping donations of any sort, including affiliation fees, by a trade union to the Labour party. However, the hon. Gentleman needs to look at new clause 8 as well as new clause 1 to see our overall intention, which is not to undermine in any radical way the relationship between the trade unions and the Labour party, but to control that relationship in a way that is fair and equitable across the other political parties and their financial relationships.
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- The debate is becoming more complicated, but does the hon. Gentleman accept the basic premise that new clause 1 is unacceptable without at the same time putting in place provisions for dealing with trade unions?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- One of the fundamental points from the Hayden Phillips talks was that we need to come together on three issues: donation caps, how they specifically affect trade unions and the relationship between the unions and the Labour party, and spending caps—it is a shame that the grouping does not allow us to talk about them all in one go. The national situation with regard to spending needs to be controlled as part of the whole package.
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- Pete WishartScottish National Party
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- Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Labour party’s attempt to evade unions being part of the whole settlement solution stretches credibility to the absolute limit? More than anything else, the measure is about transparency and choice—individual trade union members having choice about where their political fund money goes and transparency in the process so that they can see throughout exactly what contribution that money makes.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- That is precisely right and it is what we are trying to achieve. The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) is correct in that trade union members who do not contribute to the political fund should not in any way be contributing to a political party, because donations other than those from a political fund are not allowed in law. Nevertheless, the political fund is not limited to affiliations; it can spend on donations as well as affiliations, so it does not follow, as the hon. Gentleman seems to think, that if a union makes a payment from the political fund it is automatically an affiliation. That is not the case.
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- Martin LintonLabour
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- Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that any money that finds its way into the political fund of a union affiliated to the Labour party or any other party has done so only after the union has collectively voted to set up or continue a political fund and only after individual members have used, or not used, the procedure for individually opting out? I support the general concept of a cap on donations, but surely the hon. Gentleman is doing precisely the opposite of what he proposed—he is bringing forward one element of the package without resolving the key issue of the status of donations from trade unions, which I maintain should not be captured by the limit.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- The hon. Gentleman must forgive me. I am not bringing forward the single element of the package; the House authorities have managed to do that by not grouping new clauses 1 and 8 together as I would have done if I had had my way. The hon. Gentleman makes a crucial point about individual affiliation and payments to a political fund. The key point is that individuals know what is happening and are clearly able to opt out if that is what they want. All Members who have had anything to do with unions in the course of their lives—I have had a lot to do with them from my early childhood—know that some unions are more open and their political fund is easier to opt out of than others. As I mentioned at Second Reading, when my wife tried to join the union Unite she found it very difficult to opt out of the political levy, even though in the circumstances she did not feel like donating money to a party that was trying to oust me from my seat—[Hon. Members: “She might have.”] She might, but I can assure the House that she did not. The point is that the Electoral Commission should lay down clear guidelines about what counts as sufficient clarity in union rules and documentation to satisfy the commission that the union is giving its members a clear, open and transparent choice.
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- Bob SpinkIndependent
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- The hon. Gentleman is right to say that public perception is the acid test. I tend to support the direction of new clause 1, provided that it is linked to new clause 8, as he explained it was. It achieves the balance for which Labour Front Benchers called in an earlier debate. On the Hayden Phillips spending-caps pillar, can the hon. Gentleman advise the House? If there were a £50,000 limit, except for trade unions in certain circumstances, what would that give the main political parties? Has he done any research on that? I congratulate him on the way in which he has brought the debate forward; it is excellent.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- A set of figures available from the Electoral Commission and on the parties’ websites gives us a clue as to what might happen if there were a £50,000 cap. We have to make certain assumptions. One of them is that a donation of more than £50,000 would become a donation of £50,000—that is, that the whole donation would not be lost, and that only anything above £50,000 would be lost. We also have to make assumptions about how a scheme like that in new clause 8 would apply, because there is a distinction between affiliation, which would continue to be allowed, and donations to which the cap would apply. With all those caveats, I suggest that the situation would be as follows. The three main English parties, if I may put it that way in the presence of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart)—the British parties, or, as the First Minister of Scotland says, the London parties—spend about £62 million in a typical non-election year, if we take 2008 as a typical year. However, it is worth saying that in a non-election year, they often have, between them, a surplus of about £10 million, so they actually raise about £72 million. If a £50,000 cap or something similar were in place—I think that this goes some way towards answering the question that the Secretary of State posed—it would have the effect of reducing the total income of the parties by some £10 million. Of course, that £10 million would not be distributed evenly among the three parties, but then the Labour party spends about £25 million a year, and the Conservatives about £32 million. The Liberal Democrats spend about £3 million or £4 million a year. The losses for the Liberal Democrats would be proportionately small, but at about the same sort of level as the losses of the other parties. To come back to the point that the Secretary of State raised, the question is whether that would be such a devastating loss for the political parties that they would have to go cap in hand to the Government and ask for state funding. For a number of reasons, I do not think that they would necessarily be in that bad a position. The first reason is the surplus. The loss is about the same as the annual surplus, although the counter-argument is that the surplus is accumulated in non-election years and spent in election years. Even if we put the surplus to one side, a reduction of 15 or 16 per cent., although difficult to make in one go, is not, in my view, entirely out of the question for the political parties, especially the two bigger parties.
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Dr. Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- Is not the hon. Gentleman making the case that new clause 1 is unfortunately detached not only from new clause 8, but from new clause 10, which his party put forward? As Hayden Phillips—and, indeed, Select Committees—suggested, such arrangements need to lean on each other and cannot be separated from each other, if the logic is to work. Proposing an amendment that is entirely separated from a number of others as though it stood on its own appears to defeat the logic, which is to show how things might work overall.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- My view is that those three elements stand together. I would never have separated new clause 1 from new clause 10 either. The spending cap goes along with the donation cap, because it would remove part of the problem of parties trying to outspend one another for the sake of it. It is right that the effect on the parties of a £50,000 cap should be seen in the context of having a spending cap as well. What could the parties do in the medium term to deal with the gap that would be created by such a cap? It seems to me that they could do a lot of things. First, the Conservative party employs several very highly paid people, whose salaries are said to be in the region of a quarter or a third of a million pounds a year. Certain economies are therefore quite easy. Secondly, we all know that parties waste a lot of money on campaign techniques whose efficacy is far from established. The best example is billboards, which are massively expensive and do not seem to shift any votes at all. Thirdly—I suppose I would say this, as a Liberal Democrat—the Government are fond of benchmarking public services. They say, “Let’s look at an area of the country that provides a service the most cheaply and ask the other parts of the country, which supply the same thing more expensively, why they are so expensive.” As a Liberal Democrat, all that I can say is that we manage to run a national political party with £3 million, and the other parties should be asked why they need 10 times that amount to run their parties.
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- Mr. StrawIndependent
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- The other parties have rather more seats, and they aspire to Government, which makes a difference. If the hon. Gentleman wants benchmarking, I would be delighted for the Advertising Standards Authority to be given the role of benchmarking “Focus” leaflets. May I press the hon. Gentleman on state funding? Hayden Phillips was clear that state funding should be part of any donation limit package, but so too was the hon. Gentleman when he signed up to the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs report, which stated, at paragraph 109: “However, such a limit”— on donations— “should only be considered within the broader context of a discussion about alternative sources of funding, including state funding, for political parties.” There is nothing there about reducing overall funding. I have checked the minutes, and he did not demur from that recommendation, so why has he changed his mind now?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- As the Secretary of State says, the conclusion was that a donations limit should be considered in the context of state funding and other forms of funding. One obvious form of funding is to raise money in small amounts, as Barack Obama’s campaign in the US did. One of the great attractions to party fundraisers of the possibility of very large donations is that only a few big donations are needed for the required money to be raised. In the United States, where the donation cap is very low, techniques have been developed to raise money in smaller amounts but in large numbers. The question to consider is whether it would be necessary for parties to receive large amounts of state funding on a permanent basis, which the Government keep implying would be the inevitable result of a donation cap. I do not believe that it would be necessary. The amount of state funding required would be quite modest, and whether there would be any need for it to be provided on a permanent basis is an open question. We must therefore ask whether it is true that we could not introduce a donation cap without already having worked out some elaborate and permanent state funding scheme. I do not believe that that would be necessary, because in the context of the spending cap and the relationship between the Labour party and the unions, the donation cap stands by itself. It does not need those further measures.
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- Martin LintonLabour
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- Surely, the hon. Gentleman knows that we already have a system in this country that long pre-dates what is now current in the United States or Canada and that involves marshalling a large number of small donations—it is known as the political levy—and he still has not answered my point. Quite apart from affiliation fees, does he not recognise that the money that ends up in the political funds of trade unions has been put there after a collective decision in the political fund ballot and after a series of individual decisions not to contract out of the political fund levy? The money is there as a result of many small decisions by individuals.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- Yes, the money goes in by individual decision, but it comes out by collective decision and, for that precise reason, it should be treated as a donation, unless one can show that it is, indeed, an affiliation fee being passed on individually. That is the whole point of the distinction between affiliation fees and donations that Hayden Phillips was trying to make. I do not want to delay the House much further.
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- Hilary ArmstrongLabour
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- Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- Yes, I will give way, because the right hon. Lady probably wants to deal with the point that I am making.
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- Hilary ArmstrongLabour
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- No, my intervention is not on that point, although I should like to debate it with the hon. Gentleman at some stage. He started off by saying that the main thrust of the new clause came from the wish to change the public’s perception of political giving and raising money for political parties. Has he any evidence that his proposed cap would have any effect on public perception?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- Any cap would make such a big gesture in the direction of self-control by those of us in politics that it would have an enormous effect, simply by saying that we are willing at long last to control ourselves in a way that we have never been willing to do until now.
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- Tony LloydLabour
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- I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; he is being very generous with interventions. Many people—I am one of them—believe that the public really want restraint on spending and transparency about donations. Clearly, that is almost the opposite of what he is proposing and of what the Liberal Democrats believe in.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- I cannot understand how the hon. Gentleman thinks that our proposal is the opposite, because we want both an effective national spending limit all year, every year, not just sometimes, and an effective local spending limit all the time as well, in combination with a cap. The restoration of public confidence depends on having both those things, not just one of them. We often hear arguments that one side wants transparency on donations but is willing to have a cap on spending and that the other side wants things the other way around, depending on what is to its short-term advantage. That is not good enough; we need both spending and donation caps simultaneously all the time.
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- Pete WishartScottish National Party
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- I agree wholeheartedly with what the hon. Gentleman is trying to achieve. Is not one of the good things about his proposal that we would end the obscene situation whereby individuals gave the Labour party £1 million and found themselves sitting in the House of Lords?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- We would also end the situation whereby individuals gave the Labour party £1 million to change a policy and it all came out in public, so the Labour party gave back the money, but the policy still stayed changed. That seems to me to be the best-value donation of all time. However, it does not do a lot of good for any of us to bandy around the names of individuals in one party or another who have been found to have done something of no credit to politics. The question is whether what we are allowing is a credit to politics and to our democracy.
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- James BrokenshireConservative
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- Before the hon. Gentleman draws his comments to a conclusion, I just want to make sure I fully understand what he is saying about the funding gap and the interrelationship between his proposal and the need for state funding or other sorts of funding. I think he was implying that he felt that that was not necessary. However, when he and I sat on the Constitutional Affairs Committee and produced the report on party funding, it was accepted that there would be a funding gap, and that, in essence, the sorts of individualised funding that could come through would do so only after a time, and that something would be required for that transition period.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- Yes, I concede that there would be a gap, but it is a gap in time rather than a permanent gap in terms of money. I agree that there might well be an interim period when something will be needed, but that would not have to be on a straightforward Treasury grant model, as the Government seem to assume.
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- Mr. WinnickLabour
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- I hope I am not making a party point here—heaven forbid!—but although the hon. Gentleman, whom I respect, was speaking about not bandying names around, may I ask him whether he feels it would be appropriate for his party to return money given by Michael Brown, who, as the hon. Gentleman knows, was convicted of criminal offences? Should not that money be returned, and would that not help the Liberal Democrats, in the sense that it would demonstrate—
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal)Labour- Quote
- Order. We are discussing a specific amendment, and the hon. Gentleman must be careful in what he says.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- I do not want to stray from the subject of the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, but in that particular case if the authorities were to say that the money ought to be given to the Electoral Commission—rather than back to the individual concerned as that would be inappropriate in the circumstances—I am sure my party would comply immediately. I might add that the parallels between that situation and what has happened in the cricket world are very striking. Let me cover the final argument that the Government have used for not going ahead with the Hayden Phillips compromise: that there is no consensus in favour of it. That is simply a cop-out. What we should be doing is looking at where the public are at, not at where the individual parties are at, and we should be going to where the public want us to go. On the specific question of consensus, I would be surprised if there were consensus today about the unincorporated bodies issue—there is agreement between my party and the Labour party, but I would be surprised if the Conservative party were massively enthusiastic about the proposed regulation of unincorporated bodies—yet the Government have decided to move on that. My party’s view is that they should move on the reform of this whole area, not just on individual items of it.
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- Mr. StrawIndependent
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- I am glad that we have an opportunity to discuss the crucial issue of the role, if any, of donation caps in a properly transparent system of party funding that commands the greatest degree of public acceptability. This issue was first considered at great length by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which examined it in 1997, after the general election of that year; and in its landmark report of 1998, under its then chairman, Lord Neill, it set out its view of the case for and against donation caps, because—surprise, surprise!—the Liberal Democrats were at that time urging on the Neill committee donation caps of £50,000. At least on this occasion, therefore, the Liberal Democrats have the benefit of consistency on their side. That is an accusation that can rarely be made against them, but I do so today, although it also suggests that they might have been somewhat immune to experience in the meantime. The Neill report placed the burden of its recommendations on the crucial issue of transparency. On that issue, the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) made a very bad point for himself, but a good point for the rest of us, when he referred—in rather delphic terms, but we might as well refer to it publicly—to the Ecclestone donation to the Labour party, which emerged, with a certain amount of excitement, in the autumn of 1997. That donation was made under the old regime—the untransparent regime—whereby donors were entitled to request confidentiality for their donation, and I recollect, although I am open to correction, that that is what happened. The profound change made by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 was that that donation, which was well above the £5,000 limit, would have had to be on the record and be declared by the Labour party. People could then have made up their own minds about whether undue influence was being brought to bear. If the purpose of giving the money was, as it were, to purchase a policy, the donor might well have decided that, as there would be total transparency, it might not be such a good idea. I am pretty certain that none of the problems that arose would have arisen had the provisions of the 2000 Act been in force in 1997. Therefore, this is a point for those of us who believe above all in transparency, and in doing nothing that might undermine a transparent regime. Neill considered the whole issue of transparency and donation caps. He was very clear about the need for transparency and the caps, which have broadly stood the test of time, notwithstanding the fact that we and the Opposition accept that the limits must be increased. The committee came down against a donation cap, however, and I ask the House to weigh its words with great care: “The individual or company wanting to give might consider that the cap infringed a basic right and there would be a strong temptation to seek to evade the limit, perhaps by spreading resources amongst friends and relations or by setting up subsidiary companies in order to legitimise any donation by sub-dividing it. There would be no easy way to detect such a stratagem, nor to enforce the cap. In our view, the panoply of rules and bureaucracy which we believe would be required to enforce such a system would not be justified by the purpose of the cap”.
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- Hilary ArmstrongLabour
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- I intervened on the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) precisely because his new clause would create such diffusion and lack of clarity about who had given a donation that, far from public confidence being improved, public cynicism would be increased.
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- Mr. StrawIndependent
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- I agree with that, and there is a nice paradox, which I am sure political scientists will exercise themselves in exploring in years to come: the more, quite properly, the public know about our activities, the less they appear to like them, even if they are entirely legitimate and above board. I think that Members will be aware of the very nice passage in Roy Jenkins’s biography of Churchill, in which he records all the money Winston Churchill hoovered up from various nefarious sources, and suggests, with good evidence, that Churchill’s career would never have got to the starting line had the degree of undue influence to which he was subject, and the extent of the donations that would now be regarded as wholly unacceptable, come out publicly. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in what she says. There was a logical flaw in what the hon. Member for Cambridge was arguing: there is a balance to be achieved between transparency and complexity and artificiality, and the more there is the “panoply of rules and bureaucracy” to which the Neill committee referred, the less likely there is to be true transparency, and the more likely there is simply to be avoidance.
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Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)Liberal Democrat- Quote
- I am very disappointed by the position that the Lord Chancellor is now adopting, because the position that he and the then general secretary of the Labour party took in Sir Hayden Phillips’ committee, on which I also served, seemed to accept the broad consensus on the need for caps on donations and on expenditure, on a recognition of the difference between affiliation fees and donations outside those fees on the part of trade unions, and on some of the abuses among what I accept is a small number of unions. They were affiliating more members than they had and were paying over a greater amount than they were collecting in affiliation fees, and that needed to be addressed. I am sad that the Lord Chancellor seems to be resiling from that broad consensus that we reached, albeit that the Conservatives, for reasons of their own, walked out at a later stage.
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- Mr. StrawIndependent
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- The hon. Gentleman was a very participative member of the Hayden Phillips working party over many months. I did, indeed, on behalf of my party—I do not apologise for this—accept a number of compromises for the greater good. However, I have always made it clear that my starting point—I do not think that there is any dubiety about this—was that, in principle, I am not in favour of donation caps. I shall deal with the hon. Member for Cambridge’s dismissal of the idea of seeking a consensus between the parties—such a consensus is more essential in the area of party funding than in almost any other area. If there is no consensus, those who happen to be in the majority end up using their majority for partisan advantage, and that is completely antithetical to the idea of democracy. As both the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) and I have mentioned, this idea of a donation cap was reconsidered when the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs considered party funding in the 2006-07 Session. I was struck by the hon. Member for Cambridge’s amnesia about what had happened in that Committee. I was not a member of it then and I am not now, but I do remember what it said—it made it clear that it was proposing a donation cap and state funding as part of a “package”. Indeed, that was exactly how Hayden Phillips read those proposals, because he was considering the matter in parallel to the Constitutional Affairs Committee and, in a sense, took as his starting point for his proposals what was in its report, to which the hon. Member for Cambridge signed up.
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- James BrokenshireConservative
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- Before the Secretary of State leaves that report, I just wish to understand why the Government’s response to the Constitutional Affairs Committee report stated: “At present, all three main parties in the UK are agreed in principle to some form of donation limit.” He seemed to suggest that he was not in favour of that in principle and was, therefore, in some way, demurring. It would be helpful to understand why that statement was made in those terms.
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- Mr. StrawIndependent
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- As I say, my starting point has always been the position that was taken by Neill and by my party, and by the Conservative party, its Front-Bench spokesman, the shadow Home Secretary and a panoply of Conservative Uncle Tom Cobleighs, who all said that they are not so keen on donation limits, for perfectly sound reasons. What we were involved with at the same time as Hayden Phillips—the hon. Member for Hornchurch will recall that the interim report was published in October 2006—was seeking a compromise with the other parties. We were not so keen on donation limits, but we were keen on spending limits—I have always been keen on those—and other parties were keen on other elements of this, and we came together to agree what I thought was a comprehensive package. Inevitably, in a negotiation, for a greater good, both for oneself and the purpose being served by the negotiation, one gets some things one wants and one has to accept some things one does not want—there has never been any dubiety about that. When Hayden Phillips reported on 15 March 2007, he said: “In this chapter”— chapter 5— “I recommend that the time is now right to introduce a higher level of public funding for political parties.” He set out a number of reasons, all of which the hon. Member for Cambridge appeared to dismiss. Sir Hayden stated: “First, other measures proposed in this report would impose significant restrictions on the parties’ freedom to raise their own funds, and new obligations in terms of compliance and reporting. These measures are in the public interest, and it is fair and reasonable to use public funds to help offset their financial impact. Second, our political parties all face long-term financial instability because of the rising costs of their business, and it is this which has prompted them to follow the trend among large non-profit making groups to pursue large donations from wealthy individuals and organisations. Financial instability is the enemy of healthy politics, and an injection of public funds is merited if we are to maintain public confidence in our democracy. Third, there is a widely discussed and lamented decline in democratic engagement in this country, manifested in falling election turnouts and falling party membership rolls. Properly targeted, public funding can make some contribution to reinvigorating the parties’ drive to involve and engage more members of the public in political debate.” As I said to the hon. Member for Hornchurch, everybody accepted that in the spirit of compromise. Hayden Phillips reflected those principles in his proposals at the end of July. It is simply inaccurate for the hon. Member for Cambridge to assert, as he did in his speech, that Hayden Phillips did not make specific proposals on party funding, because he did so in his report in March and again in the draft all-party agreement. The Liberal Democrats and the Labour party had initialled it but, for reasons that we need not go into at length, the Conservative party was unable to support it. The agreement contained a great chunk on public funding with two linked schemes, stating: “Two new schemes for public funding of political parties will be introduced”. It did not say “could” be introduced; it is explicit on the point, which is repeated in the annex to the White Paper on party funding that I published last June as a precursor to this Bill. The truth is that unless one is willing to accept gratuitously a major shortfall in party funding, one cannot—[Interruption.] The extent to which this would fall on one party as opposed to another depends on where one sets the limit, but it would never have an equal effect on all three parties, or even on the two main parties; at some levels it would hurt the Conservative party more than the Labour party and at other levels the opposite would be the case. I admire the way in which the hon. Member for Cambridge, in a spirit of alleged liberal non-partisanship, says that the Liberal Democrats will not be affected and that the fact that the Conservatives and Labour party will between them lose about £5 million or £6 million is neither here or there, because they would just cut their spending, thank you very much. That is not the way to achieve a consensus.
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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- Perhaps the Secretary of State has hit the nail on the head. Does he agree that the problem we face in this debate is that the outside world probably thinks that each party’s position depends on its own self-interest and that the bigger picture is lost? I believe that anybody, including trade unions, should be able to give whatever money they have freely. If trade unions wish to give their money, they should be free to do so—it is their decision. Does he agree that this subject often gets bogged down in the fact that most people think that each party is simply arguing a point on the basis of its own self-interest?
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- Mr. StrawIndependent
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- I agree with that. May I say something else on the issue of donation limits? I shall do so briefly, as I know other hon. Members wish to contribute. There is no doubt that the proposals from the Constitutional Affairs Committee, which were agreed by all sides, were predicated on the basis of state funding, as were the Hayden Phillips proposals and those that were discussed in the Hayden Phillips all-party talks. A donation limit would make any sense—and could gain my support and the Government’s, for similar reasons to those that I believe have been expressed on many occasions by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly)—only if it were part of a comprehensive package. That then prompts the question about whether the time is now ripe for state funding. It would have been difficult to introduce in 2007, but in the midst of the worst recession we have seen since the war and when there is great demand on public finances and will be for some years to come, we would need to take leave of our senses to propose that hard-earned taxpayers’ money should be used to support our political parties. If we wanted to make one decision that would ensure that the esteem in which we are held—which is not that high anyway—rocketed through the floor, it would be to introduce extensive state funding.
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Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- In Committee and earlier, I have been trying to follow the impact of the Bill on Northern Ireland political parties. In their terms, £50,000 would be a very large amount. For example, is Sinn Fein required under existing legislation to have a separate cocoa tin for their moneys for Northern Ireland? If not, and it is a national party in terms of the whole of Ireland and can raise money in the Republic of Ireland—not to mention the US—how can we measure the cut-off point? If the national organisation in Dublin donates money to the north, is that seen as money from a donor? It is important that we know how all that will work, because Northern Ireland is a critical area for elections.
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- Mr. StrawIndependent
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- My hon. Friend raises a further issue of complexity, and we would have to think very hard before we went down that route. If he will forgive me, I will try to provide him with a more detailed answer should I catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, later to sum up the debate. One last point that I wish to make about state funding and donation caps is something of a gypsy’s warning. The Constitutional Affairs Committee waxed eloquent about the Canadian example, and how Prime Minister Chrétien had introduced a system of state funding with low spending and donation caps. This was the future, it said, and so it was—for a period. However, if political parties were to be significantly funded by the state, we should all remember the temptation for a Government who might be under pressure in terms of public finance to seek to use the money going to their opponents to political advantage. Last year in Canada, notwithstanding the clear all-party agreement about state funding for political parties, Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, decided—as part of an austerity package and without consulting the other parties—to propose that the state funding should be significantly cut. He was entitled to do that, but it led to paralysis in the Canadian Parliament. Had he not then prorogued Parliament peremptorily, it would have led to a motion of no confidence in him. It led to Parliament being suspended for many weeks, and he has now had to withdraw the proposal. That vulnerability to partisan advantage shows that not much good may flow from extensive state funding.
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- Pete WishartScottish National Party
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- That was an interesting lesson from Canada, but the Secretary of State suggests that we should make no change in this critical and crucial part of this Bill, and continue with business as usual. The public will find that staggering, because it means that people will still be able to buy political influence by donating to political parties. It will be back to cash for honours and people giving £1 million to the Labour party so that they end up in the other place.
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- Mr. StrawIndependent
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- First, the hon. Gentleman knows very well that there is not a shred of evidence in those allegations. Secondly, to the extent that the public know about donations, they do so because of legislation that we introduced. Unless there were good reasons for introducing donation caps, they would lead to less transparency, not more. That is not just my argument, or the Conservative party’s. It was made, independently, by the Neill committee. Thirdly, if the hon. Gentleman wants donation caps, he will have to explain to Scottish electors why their taxes should be increased to pay for political parties. Finally, it is an insult to donors small and large to all political parties to suggest, imply or insinuate that the overwhelming majority do it to curry favour or to buy advantage. They do not. They do it because—and this may be a surprise to the SNP, which has only one, negative policy—they believe in the values of the party.
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- New clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), proposes a cap on donations set at £50,000, which would be an annual limit. It would insert a new subsection 1A into section 54 of PPERA requiring that parties do not accept donations from a permissible donor if that donor had already donated £50,000 in the same calendar year. Taken by itself, the new clause looks fairly straightforward, so I agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge that taking this new clause on its own is somewhat misleading, because it is of course a very complicated issue, as the Secretary of State set out. It is the unfortunate backdrop to the debate on new clause 1 and other new clauses tabled by the Liberal Democrats that secrecy and suspicion have long tainted the donation regime. However, as the Secretary of State pointed out, most people who make donations are honest and want to contribute to the societies in which they live through their donations to political parties. As the Secretary of State said, the process started with Lord Neill’s Committee on Standards in Public Life, and the subsequent inquiry, “The Funding of Political Parties in the United Kingdom”. The Neill report was published in October 1998 and suggested, among other things, greater transparency in donations. While the Committee’s report is relevant to the new clause, it did also pave the way for further work in the area of electoral reform, and the gauntlet was recently taken up by Sir Hayden Phillips. His report, published in March 2007, made several suggestions intended to breathe life into the democratic system and revive political engagement. Indeed, by his calculations, party membership had sunk from one in every 11 citizens 50 years ago to about one in 88 in 2007. That is a grave statistic that we should all think long and hard about. Whatever Hayden Phillips thought about individual caps—and I heard a difference of opinion between the Secretary of State and the hon. Gentleman—we can accept for the purposes of this debate that his suggestions are, as a package, behind the new clause and others that the Liberal Democrats have tabled. However, we are concerned about the timing and whether this Bill is the correct forum in which to discuss such wide-scale reforms that have, for better or worse, been discounted so far.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- The hon. Gentleman asked about the timing of the proposal. If not now, when? The Bill is about party political funding and comes after the Hayden Phillips talks. I cannot think of a better time to discuss caps.
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- Mr. DjanoglyConservative
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- The Hayden Phillips talks took place and, for one reason or another, were not completed. As far as we are concerned, they are ongoing business, but for the purposes of the Bill, they are not on the table. We can debate for ever and a day why the Hayden Phillips process failed. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), who was present, will give us the benefit of his experience. The harsh reality, which the Liberal Democrats seem to fail to recognise, is that what is on the table today is a Bill that, I agree, is somewhat lacklustre. The debate surrounding individual and collective caps is therefore a debate for another day. In the report Hayden Phillips was keen to emphasise that a common approach cannot be delivered in the short term, and that consensus must be reached in finding a long-term solution. The Bill is designed to ensure that that Electoral Commission has adequate powers to deal with the provisions of PPERA. It introduces some transparency through reporting requirements and adjustments to thresholds. Yes, the Bill is a tinkering exercise rather than an overhaul, but the Conservative party will remain willing to seek that overhaul, even if that means moving back to the Hayden Phillips process or, as seems probable, beyond it. Let us be clear that when we have that further debate we shall require a thorough review of the relationship between the trade unions and the Labour party. If we were to review the need for caps, we maintain that any legislation must address the whole spectrum of donations. We need to ensure that thorough coverage of all equivalent sources of funding is guaranteed. That, of course, includes donations from trade unions. We understand and agree that limits on funding and spending should be up for debate, but implementing them in the Bill and allowing the union funding of Labour to remain unreformed—including, as the hon. Member for Cambridge said, the use of opt-out rather than opt-in to political funds and the inability to choose the party destination of political funds—would be very damaging. There is a self-perpetuating cycle, and if we are to address comprehensively the issue of party funding, we need to deal with it in the same way as the Companies Act 2006 rightly provided for companies to have member votes to enable the company to give stated amounts to stated recipients. If any Labour Member thinks that we conceded that only to allow unions to vote on having a political fund every 10 years, they should think again. The hon. Member for Cambridge will not have our support for his amendment, although we recognise his position as a matter to be included in the wider debate on party funding that will take place in due course.
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- Mr. TyrieNon-affiliated
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- This has been a very interesting debate. The proceedings of the Neill committee have been set out in some detail, so I shall not repeat them. The intentions of new clause 1 go to the heart of what we are trying to achieve in any reform of party funding, which is to restore trust in the source of donations. I would like to support new clause 1 in principle, as my Front-Bench team probably would, but not without qualification, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) agreed when he referred to a number of other clauses that he had tabled and other points that were not in those clauses. That is why he wanted to speak about trade union affiliation fees, state funding and other issues. This is an area that we must clean up. The means by which parties fund themselves have contributed substantially to the loss of trust in them on the part of the electorate. The plain fact is that people believe that parties can be bought, and they may be right. Access, influence and even changes to legislation all appear to have been tradable over the past decade, not to mention the honours system. Those seem to have been traded for party cash by many parties for a long time, Lloyd George being the most salient example. Allegations about my own party’s activities and the relationship between the award of honours and senior corporate directorships at times in the 1980s did not always look 16 annas to the rupee to me. Then we have had Labour’s recent crop of life peers, with a fair sprinkling of big donors among them. The big donor culture has created a perception of corruption and we must do something about it. No debate on the subject should fail to mention Michael Brown’s millions donated to the Liberal party—he is now in jail—and the trade unions’ donations, with which they appear to have bought considerable influence, in the Warwick agreement and in other ways. The clause would end the big donor culture at a stroke. Some may argue for a cap of less than £50,000. I notice that the Liberal Democrats started to do that today. That, as the Lord Chancellor pointed out, is a flat contradiction of the Liberal party policy that has been around for several years.
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- Mr. HeathLiberal Democrat
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- The hon. Gentleman’s memory deserts him. He must remember that during the talks I made it clear that I would have preferred a lower limit, but that I thought the £50,000 to which his party had agreed was a workable compromise. He must remember that.
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- Mr. TyrieNon-affiliated
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- I am on the record as saying many times that I would have preferred a lower limit, but my party’s position is £50,000, and the hon. Gentleman’s party’s position was £50,000 at the time of the talks, in published documents. It seems now that that has gone, and the Liberal party has another public position. It is a sad irony that while the issue has led to the public perception of corruption in politics to a higher level than I can remember, that has taken place at a time when politics has probably been less corrupt than in any previous era. One has only to cast one’s mind back to Gladstone and the trading of consols in 1870s, his trading of Suez canal stock, and Lloyd George and the honours sales, which I have mentioned before. I am sorry that I keep going on about the Liberals. No doubt other parties were at it as well. If we agree to new clause 1, we are still left with a crucial question: can parties fund themselves on so much less? The hon. Member for Cambridge started to discuss that. Could Labour do without trade unions, the Liberal party without its Browns or the Conservatives without their big donors? I think so, provided that several conditions are fulfilled. One is that there should be an overall spending cap nationally at a lower level than we have at present for general elections. The general election cap is £20 million and should be reduced to £15 million. That is Conservative party policy. I do not know whether it is Labour party policy; I could not tell after what I heard today. That is a cut of a third in real terms, which is a reasonable step. Secondly, if we go ahead with the proposals, we must have some state funding, but I agree with those who said today that at a time of financial stringency, the public opposition to more state funding would be enormous, and my sympathies would be with the public on that. We would do well to recall that existing levels of state funding for political parties are already very high. Roughly half of our party politics is funded by the state directly or indirectly—a much higher figure than is commonly supposed. If there were more state funding along the lines set out in new clause 1, however, it would have to be based on a principle that the electorate could accept. It would have to be designed to encourage very local campaigning and a regeneration of grass-roots politics, and that would mean tax relief or match funding. It would also mean that cash-per-vote schemes, such as the Liberals have supported and the Conservatives considered in the 2005 proposals, and which were published at that time, would not be serious runners again for some time. I was never enthusiastic about those schemes, and I do not support them now. However, I do support match funding.
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- Philip DaviesConservative
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- For me, the most important thing is transparency rather than a cap. My hon. Friend said that some people give donations to political parties seeking influence or something else in return. That may be so, but he seems to be suggesting that political parties are incapable of taking people’s money without offering something in return. Surely the onus is on the political parties to take people’s money but make it clear that absolutely nothing will be given in return.
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- Mr. TyrieNon-affiliated
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- There are two problems with that. First, we do not need to look in a crystal ball. We can read the book: we can see that political parties—this Government and previous ones—do appear to have given things in return for money, and on a sizeable scale. Secondly, even if the problem is only one of perception, it will not go away, and we need to deal with it. I want to allude to the Hayden Phillips negotiations, which centred on the treatment of affiliation fees. Throughout that period, the Conservative position was absolutely clear, as it still is. Special treatment of affiliation fees can be considered as part of the introduction of a £50,000 cap. I mean “special” treatment, because logically a £50,000 cap should be accompanied by a complete restriction, meaning that only direct payments by individuals should be permitted as a legitimate source of funding for political parties. Corporate donations and donations from institutions and intermediaries, including trade unions, in which the individual is subsumed, should in the long run be restricted—and brought to an end after an interval. That point was set out in the Conservative party’s proposals published in 2005. Incidentally, this is also the view of many in the Labour party, although only a few are bold enough to speak up and say so. Matt Taylor, former adviser to Tony Blair, has set out in detail in print and in a number of speeches exactly the position that I have described. A good number of Blairites on the Government Benches have told me privately that they agree, although very few are prepared to put their heads above the parapet. We are left with a crucial question. How could affiliation fees be allowed to cheat the logic of the £50,000 cap while upholding the principle that those donations are matters of individual choice? There are three requirements. First, there should be a genuine choice for an affiliated member. In the course of the Hayden Phillips investigations, we discovered that many affiliated members scarcely knew that they had made a donation to the Labour party. That, no doubt, accounts for the absurdity that, when polled, a majority of affiliated trade union members turn out to vote for political parties other than Labour. It beggars belief that they should want to donate to Labour while voting for the Scottish National party, the Liberal party or the Conservative party. The second requirement must be that the choice should be extended to donations from other parties. Therefore the means by which the choice is presented to the affiliated member as he joins the trade union must enable him not only to choose not to give to one party, but to choose to give to another. The third requirement must be that the individual must periodically be given an opportunity to review his decision—in practice, that does not happen in many trade unions. That opportunity should be provided annually. Before a decision is taken on whether to vote for the new clause, there is one large question to address. What would happen if the clause were introduced on to the statute book, but without any of the qualifying points that we, including the hon. Member for Cambridge, have made this afternoon? That question determines whether I would recommend to my party that it should support the clause. There would be several effects. The first would be that all parties were short of money. Does that matter? I have already discussed that question. Spending on party politics in this country is already high and it could probably be brought down. Billboards have been mentioned, and numerous other savings could be made with no material damage to the fabric of our party political system. Incidentally, I did a comparison, taking into account per capita income, between the amount spent in the recent US presidential election and in this country’s last general election. To my surprise, I found that the numbers were broadly comparable—and without taking into account a costing of the party political broadcasts, which parties get free in this country but pay a fortune for in the United States. We already spend a lot of money on party politics in this country and I think that we could do the job with less. Of course, that is why we Conservatives support the reduction of the cap on general election spending from £20 million to £15 million. New clause 1 would have a second big effect, which I would not find acceptable. The playing field would no longer be level; it would be fundamentally altered to the detriment of the Labour party. It would be grossly unfair to disadvantage a party without giving it any time to adjust, however reasonable the principles on which that adjustment was taking place. What kind of adjustment would it be? Well, Labour Members could start to devote some time to thinking about how to make use of their party’s huge databases of affiliated members and find ways of turning some of them into genuine individual Labour party members like members of other parties, instead of just sitting there moaning about how this is an assault on the fabric of their constitution, which is, in legal terms, complete nonsense. However, I recognise that that process would take time—perhaps a long time—and that a long transitional period would therefore be required.
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Danny Alexander (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (LD)Liberal Democrat- Quote
- Perhaps amendments might be tabled in another place to allow the change to take place in the more moderate way that the hon. Gentleman is talking about, but would not passing this new clause be the best way to concentrate minds in this House? Is not the problem that the minds of those on the Labour and Conservative Front Benches do not wish to be concentrated?
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- Mr. TyrieNon-affiliated
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- I am happy to support motions to concentrate minds, but I get wary about supporting fundamental new clauses when they are intended to act as itching powder. However, I understand the sentiment behind the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, and I hope that we will make some progress on this issue before long. For the avoidance of doubt, let me conclude my point about Labour and affiliation fees. It should not be in anyone’s interests—indeed, it would not be in the Conservative party’s interests—to bankrupt the Labour party, and I am sure that that is not what the hon. Member for Cambridge would want to achieve. In the long run, however, cash raised locally from local party activism must be allowed to influence outcomes. The idea that there should always be a level playing field with the same amount spent in every area must be wrong. If we are to encourage and revive genuine local party grass-roots activism in British politics, it must be right that different parts of the country, and different constituencies, should have widely different levels of spending. That is why, quite apart from the administrative impossibility, local caps on spending are a non-starter. A global cap of some sort is the way forward. I might initially have been prepared to recommend something that would be unfair on Labour if I thought that Labour Members were going to start responding in a positive way, but I see absolutely no sign of that. We have to be cautious, but in doing so we must keep thinking about what measures are required that will command public confidence. Most of us agree—I sometimes wondered during the Lord Chancellor’s speech, however—that we do not have that confidence now. The Conservatives set out three principles that should govern how to establish such confidence—[Interruption.] I will not go through them in detail, in response to the comment by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), but if he reads page 3 of the proposals, he will see that a cap is an essential element. When the Conservatives get back into office, we will do absolutely everything to seek consensus on this issue, with the objective of restoring trust. Equally, however, we cannot leave this matter at the mercy of an indefinite veto on any meaningful change by any one party. That is why, while not supporting new clause 1, I am confident that my party in government will look to a donations cap as the way forward. As this debate progresses in the country, and as the degeneration of respect for parties proceeds—as I predict that it will unless we take action—the pressure will reach a point whereby even the Labour party will be prepared to come seriously to the negotiating table to discuss a change in the relationship between it and the trade unions with regard to affiliation fees.
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Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- I am only surprised that the proposed cap in the new clause is so large. If I look back over what has happened to politics in my time in this House, certainly over the past 15 years, I see, election by election, a decline in voters’ attention to a fundamental necessity in their lives—the political process. If donations can be allowed to be so large, that makes things unequal because, naturally and understandably, it is an obvious observation that political parties become very interested in the large donor and let go of the little donor. As a consequence of that detachment from political processes over the years, revenues at local level have fallen and political parties are contracting. In many constituencies, parties are shadow organisations with very few members exercising, for instance, choice over who should be the candidate. Big donations have enabled the centralisation of political choices through party headquarters. The parties in London seek to garner all this money, so they run campaigns aggrandising the centre, but the vitality of the political history of this country comes from the grass-roots. All the great movements that have swept this country, including the extension of suffrage, were intensely public, popular movements supported by the many, not the few.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- I am grateful for the support of the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). The sentiment behind his speech is precisely that behind the new clause, which is that we have to do something to reduce the gap between us as representatives and the people whom we represent. At the moment, one of the things coming between us and those people is big money. The process that the hon. Gentleman described, where parties turn their attention to those who give big donations, and therefore away from the ordinary people of the electorate, is profoundly important and profoundly dangerous. I am also grateful for the rather more qualified support of the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), but one of the things that he said about the new clause is vital— it would, at a stroke as he put it, get rid of the big donor culture. That is precisely its intention. Conservative Members argued against the new clause on the ground that the amount of £50,000 is too large, and I agree. It is too large, and I would like to see the amount reduced, but we have to start somewhere and so we have started with a proposal to which the Conservatives, as a party, agreed in principle, as part of the Hayden Phillips process. I urge Conservative Back Benchers to think about what they will be doing if they fail to support the new clause. It was profoundly disappointing to hear the Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen simply say that the time is not ripe—according to them, the time never seems to be ripe. This Bill is about political parties and the funding of those parties, and if now—before the next general election—is not the right time to discuss the issue, and to pass such safeguards, when is? As for the Government, I was even more disappointed with what the Secretary of State had to say. The position that he took rows back immensely from where we all imagined the Labour party to be. The idea that transparency is all that we need in the regulation of donations is extraordinary, and it does not meet the obvious objection that if we know the system is corrupt, it is still corrupt. If people can see that the system is corrupt, that makes it worse. We cannot move on from where we are simply through measures of transparency; we must set a cap on the influence that individuals have on politics through money. The final thing I say to the Government is simply this: if they refuse to move on the issue of donation caps now, and if they ignore the view in society at large and in other parts of the political system that this is something that must be done, they will put their own party at risk because when reform does come—as it must—it will come at a time far less favourable to it. The relationship between the Labour party and the trade unions, which we discussed, it is at the heart of that very point. I and my party have offered a very moderate solution to that problem—one with which the Labour party could easily live, and one which the public would recognise as fair. But if the Labour party will not move on the principle, it might find itself, after the next election, in political circumstances where this House’s solution is profoundly less favourable to it—a solution that will, in the end, put the very existence of the Labour party on the line. I warn the leaders of the Labour party to bear in mind the consequences of how they are telling their Members to vote tonight. With that, I intend to press the motion to a Division. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)Conservative- Quote
- With this it will be convenient to discuss Government new clause 22—Schemes under section [Schemes for provision of data to registration officers]: proposals, consultation and evaluation.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- The only fundamental principles that I would raise at this point are those of data protection. Will the Minister explain why new clause 21 seems to allow an order to be made that completely ignores those principles?
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Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- Does the Minister agree that another fundamental principle is that the registration should be accurate, bearing it in mind that this is a gateway to, for example, absent voting? These things must be done in such a way as to provide good identifiers that stand in the way of fraud.
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- Chris RuaneLabour
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- Does the report that my right hon. Friend is quoting from make any reference to illiteracy? What is the effect of low functional literacy on registration rates?
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Mr. Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)Labour- Quote
- I echo my right hon. Friend’s comment that many electoral registration officers are doing an excellent job, but the reality nationwide is that only 91 per cent. of those eligible to be registered are registered. Must not we prioritise getting a comprehensive register before we do anything else?
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- Mr. LoveLabour
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- Does my right hon. Friend accept that a great difficulty here is whether the council giving the funds for electoral registration prioritises that as an activity? In such circumstances, would it not be better for us to ring-fence funding for electoral registration to ensure that it is done properly?
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- Chris RuaneLabour
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- When I have tabled parliamentary questions asking about the amount per elector in each local authority area, I have been told that the information is not collated in England, but it has been collated in Wales. The point made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) about the importance of ring-fenced funding is crucial. In Wales it was found—lo and behold—that the authorities that spent more money on electoral registration had bigger, better registers, while those that spent less had worse registers. Funding is key. If the Ministry of Justice sends the money to local authorities for that purpose, it must be spent for that purpose.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- I fully support the sentiments that the Minister is expressing, but there is a problem with uniform national standards in the context of electoral registration. It has nothing to do with deprivation; it simply has to do with the demographic circumstances of different authorities. Cambridge has a massive turnover of population—not just the student population—and to hold such areas to the same standards as even neighbouring authorities such as South Cambridgeshire, which has a very stable population, would not be fair on the authorities in the city of Cambridge.
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- Chris RuaneLabour
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- As my right hon. Friend says, EROs currently have permission to consult databases in different local authority departments. That entitlement is taken up with gusto by some, and is not taken up at all by others. Given that any new powers that my right hon. Friend gives may not be taken up, what measures can he and his Department take to ensure that what powers are given are used?
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- Martin LintonLabour
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- Since 25 November, many people renewing visas have been given identity cards containing their names and addresses. Some of those people are eligible to vote in this country. May I take it that they will be automatically included in the relevant electoral register?
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- Bob SpinkIndependent
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- I support the aim of new clause 21. However, subsection (7) deals with the disclosure of information to third parties by a registration officer, who, according to paragraph (b), can pass on information “for the purposes of any criminal or civil proceedings”. In what circumstances would the officer provide such information pursuant to civil proceedings, what civil proceedings has the Minister in mind, and what protections would be provided?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- The Minister referred to the public bodies, or Government Departments, that had been consulted, and the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) asked about the specificity, or the particular consequence, of the order. Has the Minister consulted the Information Commissioner about the new clause, and if so, what did the commissioner say?
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Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)Liberal Democrat- Quote
- rose—
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- Martin HorwoodLiberal Democrat
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- I understand what the Minister is saying, but it seems to me that the provisions breach one of the data protection principles. The principle of fair processing—as I understand it—is that data should be processed only for the purpose for which they were supplied to the data processor. In supplying data for voter registration, another public authority such as the NHS or the Department for Work and Pensions would actually be using that data for a purpose for which they were not supplied. That represents a breach of the original data protection principles.
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- Martin HorwoodLiberal Democrat
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- rose—
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- Mr. HoggConservative
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- That is very helpful, but we have to remember that the affirmative resolution is not amendable. Given that fact, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the House should have an opportunity to debate affirmative resolutions in draft so that we can make our comments and the Government can decide whether they want to amend the final draft to reflect what the Information Commissioner has said?
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- Martin HorwoodLiberal Democrat
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- The Minister is being very patient with me. I can see provision under the new clauses for a report by the Electoral Commission, but I can see no specific provision for a report by the Information Commissioner. Can the Minister draw our attention to the exact clause or subsection where that provision is made?
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- Martin HorwoodLiberal Democrat
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- rose—
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- Mr. HeathLiberal Democrat
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- Will the Minister give way?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am not sure that we have been given the right information on the grouping of the new clauses and amendments. The Minister seems to have moved on to new clauses 14 to 16 and 25, which, according to my piece of paper, are in a different group from new clauses 21 and 22.
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- Mr. Deputy SpeakerConservative
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- Order. I have every confidence in Mr. Speaker’s selection, and I have not heard anything that causes me to worry about the Minister’s interpretation of it, but I shall continue to listen to the Minister.
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- Dr. WhiteheadLabour
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- Is it my right hon. Friend’s intention to include in that timetable, with which I wholeheartedly concur, the piloting and rolling out of electoral registration and the inclusion, in the way he describes, of the information that he suggests is necessary? Does he therefore think that the timetable for piloting and for the national roll-out of data sharing, and the electoral registration drive, are central parts of a larger timetable, as far as individual identifiers are concerned?
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- Chris RuaneLabour
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- I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way yet again. Does he think that the timetable, with its end date of 2015, is long enough, bearing in mind that the changes that we made in 2006 to improve the electoral register have increased it by only 500,000? There are still 3 million people missing. It has taken three years to get 500,000 people back on the register; how long does he think that it will take to get 3.5 million people back on the register?
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- Mr. HeathLiberal Democrat
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- It is simple arithmetic.
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- Mr. LoveLabour
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- I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. My question relates to the Electoral Commission and its role of signalling whether individual registration should be undertaken. Will it be able to override the 2015 date if, in its view, we are not ready to move to individual registration?
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- On that point, and the point raised by the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) about the timetable, when Mr. Peter Wardle, speaking for the Electoral Commission, gave evidence at the beginning of the Bill’s Committee stage, he said that he thought that individual registration could begin with the 2010 renewal canvass, and that from then, it would be a “two to three year gradual process until the register is complete and has a much greater degree of integrity, in that there are personal identifiers for each person registered.”––[Official Report, Political Parties and Elections Public Bill Committee, 6 November 2008; c. 60, Q154.] I took that to mean that it was the view of the Electoral Commission that the whole thing could be put in place by 2013, or possibly 2014.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- Will the Minister give way?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- My query is about the previous part of the plan, the point at which the provision of identifiers is not yet compulsory. I have a number of concerns about that. What the Minister is announcing is immensely important, and by the time identifiers become compulsory we must have learned as much as possible about what the pitfalls might be. How will the system work during that run-up period? Will different areas do different things? Unless they do so, surely we will not be able to learn the possibilities of the scheme. For example, a student library card might be an identifier in a student area, but not in a different area. What will happen so that we get experimental data in that period?
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- Mr. HoggConservative
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- The Minister is right that a comprehensive register is an important object of policy, but so is establishing a register that prevents fraud and abuse, particularly with regard to absent voting. What troubles me in listening to him is that it appears that the Electoral Commission, in making its adjudications, will concentrate primarily on gaining comprehensiveness. In the criteria that the commission will be given, how important will the objective of preventing fraud be? That does not necessarily work in tandem with ensuring comprehensiveness, and for me, preventing fraud is more important.
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Dr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- I am sure that my right hon. Friend is right to spell out just how historic this shift is, but when it comes to the crucial decision about when the whole thing goes live and household registration ceases to have any validity, it is one thing to say that the Electoral Commission will tell us what has happened and advise us, after which the decision will be taken by Ministers accountable to the House. It is another thing to say that the whole thing will be put under the commission’s control. Which are the Government proposing?
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- Chris RuaneLabour
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- The hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) said that different areas do different things, which is true. I shall illustrate that point graphically. When the former leader of the Liberal Democrats in Islington was challenged to go on an electoral registration drive prior to an election, he refused. He said that not having registration drives was how Liberal Democrats won elections. [Interruption.] What measures can be taken to prevent political interference? All the measures that my right hon. Friend the Minister takes will mean nothing if there is political interference from the top, and if people deny the opportunity for promotion and deny electoral registration officers resources. What can he do to ensure that there is no recurrence of such Liberal Democrat electioneering?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- This point is important, and it is related to what the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) said. Does the Minister envisage that there will be an unamendable order to bring the new scheme into force? I guess that there will be a lot of debate about which identifiers are acceptable and which are not, so a simple up-down vote at that point would be the wrong procedure.
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- Mr. HeathLiberal Democrat
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- Will the Minister give way?
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- Mr. HeathLiberal Democrat
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- I am grateful to the Minister, but it is precisely the fact that he will not able to reveal the full details that is the problem. This is the single biggest thing in the entire Bill, and it is not in the form of a Government amendment before the House is asked to pass the Bill to another place. That, frankly, is not satisfactory, and he must realise that.
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- Mr. HoggConservative
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- The right hon. Gentleman says that he wants consensus. I understand him to be saying that these fundamentally important amendments will be introduced in the other place. They will then come back to the House, where they will be debated probably for an hour. That is not a proper way in which to get consensus. It is extraordinarily late to introduce amendments of this moment, but to do so in the other place and then have them debated in the House for an hour is scandalous.
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- Mr. HeathLiberal Democrat
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- Will the Minister give way?
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- We welcome these new clauses. The Minister has stressed several times during his speech the fundamental principles, and we agree with him on those principles. Indeed, the Opposition said from the very beginning, when the Bill was first introduced, that there was no point in having a Bill about political parties and elections without the sort of provision that the Minister has introduced this evening. Although I understand his explanations about the practical difficulties that he has faced in introducing his proposals tonight, what is sad is that, if the provisions had been included at the beginning of our scrutiny of the Bill, by this point in the proceedings—we are minutes away from the debate on Third Reading—he would have had the consensus that he asked for. As far as I can tell from long and detailed consideration in Committee, we are all in agreement about what we are trying to achieve. The question is how, and what the balance is between the needs of the individual, of privacy and of preventing fraud and so on, and the integrity of the ballot.
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- Mr. HeathLiberal Democrat
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- The hon. Lady knows that we have had this argument before, with the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats strongly advocating the need for personal identification and individual registration and the Government rejecting it, but does she not agree that taking such action at this stage, with nothing relating to any Government proposals on the amendment paper for us to vote on, is simply unsatisfactory? Does she agree that the best course of action would be for the Minister now, with a manuscript amendment, to recommit the Bill with his new amendments, so that it can be reconsidered in Committee and we can do the job that the House is elected to do, rather than giving it to another House that is not elected?
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point; of course, I agree. Indeed, I agree with the Minister, and we all agree that we want to improve the integrity of the ballot and the electoral system, and to enhance and indeed restore confidence in that system. At the same time, however, I want the integrity and supremacy of the House of Commons to be protected, so I object, as do Liberal Democrat Members, to the proposals being introduced so late. Nevertheless, I will not oppose these new clauses. I will not encourage the Conservative party to vote against them, because half a loaf is better than no bread at all, and it is better that these provisions should be introduced at a time when at least they can be scrutinised in another place than that they should not be introduced at all.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- I caution the hon. Lady to distinguish between new clauses 21 and 22, which are before us tonight, are about data sharing and have not yet been properly debated, and all the proposals the Minister announced, which sound very good, but are not before us tonight. Those two things are entirely separate, and I ask her not to come to any final conclusions on the new clauses until the debate has finished.
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- No, I shall not do so. The hon. Gentleman is correct: the Minister has this evening put before us a set of new clauses that pave the way for further reform and which we welcome in principle, but he has explained matters to us only in words and with no legislative provision. This is not a debate about principles, however; it is the Report stage of a Bill that has already been scrutinised for many months, and we are only minutes away from moving on to Third Reading. It would have been much better if the House had been able to consider these matters properly. It might be constitutionally correct by the letter to introduce such measures in, effectively, the other place and not in the House of Commons, but it is not constitutionally correct in principle.
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- Mr. HoggConservative
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- To reinforce what my hon. Friend has just said, I point out that the programme order provides that amendments from the House of Lords may themselves be programmed, and it is therefore likely that if substantive amendments come from the other place, we will be given a very short period in which to comment on them.
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- As ever, my right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely correct. Indeed, the method of dealing with the Bill, with the timetables introduced over several months now, has been a disgrace to democracy. [Interruption.] Ministers may laugh, but I am trying to help them, because in principle what they say they wish to achieve is also what I wish to achieve. However, we have no way of knowing its precise details and by what method it will be achieved. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) mentioned timetabling, and I am currently particularly concerned about that, because this evening we have only 29 minutes of Report left and there are some very important matters that we are unlikely to have time to address because we have suddenly had to deal with this other group of new clauses. I am thinking in particular of the very important new clause 23, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) and which deserves to be debated and voted upon by this House, although that is unlikely to happen.
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- I understand what the Minister is saying, but I am unsure whether his colleagues who deal with the business of the House will agree with him. I must point out that the principles set out in my new clause 16, which we will not now have time to debate, attempt to achieve what he now says he is attempting to achieve, and I am delighted that he has once again embraced Conservative policy, which has been right since the beginning of our consideration of the Bill. Indeed, I recall standing at this Dispatch Box proposing a very similar measure in 2005, when we debated what is now the 2006 Act. I have been asking for these things for more than four years. [Interruption.] Did the Lord Chancellor say, “Be gracious”?
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- Well, I shall indeed be gracious by giving way again to the Minister.
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- I am happy to confirm that we are in agreement; of course we want the register to be comprehensive. I should like briefly to make some progress, because I know that other hon. Members wish to speak on this matter, although many of them have already intervened. We welcome these specific new clauses, as they pave the way for much more that needs to be done to improve and secure the integrity of the ballot. The principles of individual voter registration and the use of personal identifiers are absolutely fundamental to the aim of improving the integrity of the ballot.
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- Martin HorwoodLiberal Democrat
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- rose—
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, but he must understand that his Liberal colleagues will not have time to make their wonderful speeches.
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- Martin HorwoodLiberal Democrat
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- I am astonished by the Conservative party’s failure to oppose these new clauses. Surely the principle here is the concentration of power in the hands of the few. That used to mean Tory aristocrats trying to buy constituencies with their wealth—perhaps it still does—but the important principle at stake is the concentration of information in the hands of the state, and that is especially worrying in the case of a state as careless with people’s personal data as this one. Surely the hon. Lady should be opposing these proposals.
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- I am coming to the point about data security. I am also being careful to stay within the rules and not speak to the next group of amendments.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- The Minister did.
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- Well, had I had a chance to do so, I would have extolled at much greater length the virtues of individual voter registration and personal identifiers. Some in this House will know that we dealt with those matters at great length in Committee, so I am satisfied that the principles have been thoroughly examined. The Committee was more or less unanimous in agreeing that individual voter registration, personal identifiers and all the other matters that I would have proposed in the next group of amendments have now been accepted in principle by the Government. I am delighted about that; I would even go so far as to call it a U-turn, and I am delighted that it is a U-turn in the Conservative direction. We appreciate, of course, that the new clauses are necessary in order to ensure that as many people as possible who are entitled to vote are properly registered to vote. Just as importantly, people who are not entitled to vote should not be on the register, and it should not contain any names that are not those of real people—the integrity of the register itself is so important.
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- Mr. LoveLabour
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- May I again point out the Conservatives’ focus on ensuring the integrity of the register to the exclusion of its comprehensiveness? Can the hon. Lady tell us how many cases of individual registration fraud, if any, there have been in the past five years?
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- I do not have the exact number at my fingertips, but that is not the point. The hon. Gentleman has made his point a few times this evening, and I do not entirely agree with him. He says that one side of the argument should take precedence over the other, but I do not believe that it should. Surely we can devise a system that ensures that all those who are entitled to vote are registered and are encouraged and able to vote, while also stopping fraud in the register. They are equal aims, goals and principles, and one should not take precedence over the other.
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- Chris RuaneLabour
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- Is the hon. Lady on record anywhere stating her belief in the importance of the comprehensiveness of the register? Is that an important aim for her party?
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- I believe that I am on the record as saying that, but just in case, I am happy to go on the record right now and say it. Of course, I agreed with the Minister on the fundamental principles that he put forward. Some 91 per cent. of those entitled to vote are registered to vote, and that is not good enough. Every single person, especially those who, because of disability or other reason, have difficulty in registering to vote, should be helped to register to do so. That is extremely important and in our own personal campaigning in our constituencies we do all we can to ensure that all the people whom we can reach register to vote and do vote, especially—no, I shall not say any more about which way they vote. In principle, we want everyone to be registered to vote, and I am happy to go on the record on that. I take the Minister’s point about two-tier local authorities, for example. It is therefore important that the measures that he has proposed should come into force. However, most importantly, it is the individual who has the right to vote, not the householder. It is the individual who has the right, and indeed the duty, to participate in the democratic system, and therefore the system should recognise the individual. We want to improve the integrity of the ballot and restore the security and accuracy of, and the people’s confidence in, our electoral system. At the same time, I do of course have concerns about data sharing, which several hon. Members have mentioned. That is why I am concerned that we will not be able to scrutinise properly the new clauses before us. Neither will we be able to scrutinise the Minister’s proposals, as they are not before us in any way. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham said earlier, it is all very well for the Minister to say that these matters will come before the House under the affirmative resolution procedure, but an affirmative resolution is not amendable and usually gives rise to a debate of one and a half hours—
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- If that.
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- Indeed. That is not sufficient to scrutinise such proposals properly, so I wish to put it on the record that we are concerned about that. Although we want to work with the Government to bring about the aims towards which we are all working, there are better ways to do it than this. There are better ways to improve democracy through the democratic system. If the Minister can give us undertakings that this measure is specific and has a finite purpose, I would simply ask for his assurance that these provisions could not be used to increase data sharing generally. He said that they were for the provision of specific information and for a sole purpose, and that is very important in terms of data sharing, security and protection.
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- I take that as an assurance from the Minister on behalf of the Government that we will have proper time for debate. This is extremely important. It is not just a political argument for the sake of it. The Minister rightly says that he wishes to take the issue forward by means of consensus.
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- Mr. HoggConservative
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- Will my hon. Friend give way?
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- In a moment. The hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), the Minister and I have spent many hours reaching some consensus on the principles that we are discussing. If the Government want consensus, they must give the House an opportunity to come to a consensus. Consensus cannot just be reached, but must be seen to be reached—to coin a legal phrase, which I see the Lord Chancellor appreciates. I give way to my right hon. and learned Friend, who, I hope, will agree with me on the legal principle.
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- Mr. HoggConservative
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- I did not intend to touch on that. We have been told by the Minister that we will be given proper and appropriate time for consideration. Who will be the judge of that? May I suggest to my hon. Friend that the best thing is to extract an undertaking from the Minister that the time spent on the House on Lords amendments will be agreed by all the parties before the timetable motion is tabled?
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- I will attempt, as my right hon. and learned Friend suggests, to extract that undertaking from the Minister. I will be surprised if I get it.
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- Mr. StrawIndependent
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- He was a Whip, too.
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- I appreciate that the Minister’s undertakings are genuine, and I believe him when he says that he wants to achieve what we all want to achieve. Whether he will succeed in getting the usual channels and the Leader of the House to give the amount of time that we—I think I speak for everyone on the Opposition Benches—consider to be realistic and necessary is another matter. For a moment even the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and I agree. However, I believe that the Minister will try. [Interruption.] The Minister asks how long. The answer is long enough for all the hon. Members who have expressed concern this evening and throughout the passage of the Bill to express them properly about data.
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- Mr. HoggConservative
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- Six hours.
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- The principle is so important that I had hoped that tonight we might have several hours on new clause 16, the principles of individual voter registration and so on. When I saw the Minister’s new clauses, which we are discussing, I had hoped that we would have a few hours on those as well. I would say that we need at least six hours.
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- Mr. HeathLiberal Democrat
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- Does the hon. Lady agree that it is a matter not of time, but of process? What would be ideal would be a Committee stage, followed by a period for reflection, followed by a Report stage and Third Reading.
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- The issue is about more than the hours. We should be able to scrutinise the legislation line by line, with amendments—including probing amendments. We need to consider it very carefully. As the Minister says, the Bill has been considerably improved during its passage through the House. That is the point: it has been improved because we have scrutinised it—the Minister said that himself. It would be further improved if we could scrutinise the new proposals that he has put forward this evening. I want to ask the Minister a few questions about data security. Will he assure us, on behalf of the individuals of this country, that adequate data security procedures will be in place to ensure that the enormous amount of personal data to which the clauses refer are properly protected—that is, better protected than the personal information that the Government have lost in recent months? Will the Electoral Commission be required to lay before Parliament a copy of its report on the data-sharing scheme? Will the Information Commissioner be required to produce a report in respect of subsection (4)? Will registration officers be required to undertake a privacy impact assessment? Those are precise questions, but this is not the time for asking them or the atmosphere in which they should be asked; we are now nine minutes from Third Reading. I do not suppose that the Minister will have a chance to answer the questions this evening. [Interruption.] The Minister says that he will write to me, and I appreciate that. However, we should ask the questions in an atmosphere where the Minister and Members can properly scrutinise the information before us. Having said all that, I am pleased that the Government have brought forward the proposals this evening. As I said a few moments ago, at the beginning of the Bill’s passage we said that there was no point in a political parties and elections Bill that did not include provisions to improve the integrity of the ballot and the individual’s right to register and vote. We are delighted that, at last, the Minister—albeit at the eleventh hour—has come forward with the proposals for which we have been looking for many months.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- This has been a remarkable hour and a half. Through a group of new clauses about data sharing, the Government have announced a reform of the entire electoral registration system, and in a wholly new direction. It should be said that my party has called for that new direction for some time; we certainly welcome it and we thank the Government for it. I should also say that, unlike some Conservatives, I have always accepted the Government’s other point, on which the Minister spent a good deal of time before he got to the details of the major concession. It is that if we are to move to a system of individual registration, there needs to be some preparation and a comprehensive study of the possible pitfalls and problems. We do not want there to be a move to an individual registration system that results in a great fall in the number of people registered. We would then have to spend years and years trying to scramble back up to where we were at the beginning.
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- Mrs. LaingConservative
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- For the record, I should say that I entirely agree with what the hon. Gentleman has just said.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- I am very glad to hear that. I think that at last we have achieved consensus on an issue where there was no apparent consensus on Second Reading or, for a good deal of the time, in Committee. There are, though, serious problems to consider, and the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) rightly raised a large number, which I will not repeat because time is short. If I could be forgiven for making a parochial point from my own constituency, a typical question that arises when one moves to a system of individual registration is what happens to students. At the moment, students in halls of residence are often treated by the electoral registration officer as living in a single household, and the university or college authorities take the role of head of household and fill in the electoral registration forms on behalf of those students. If we are to move to a system of individual registration, as we should, it will take a while for those institutions to work out new ways of encouraging their students to register. That is possible, and it is not something to be afraid of, but it needs time to work through to ensure that it happens. Like other Members, I am concerned about the process by which this change of direction has been announced. The Minister says that he has been listening in the course of the debates on Second Reading and in Committee. That is true. I would like to pay tribute to the way in which he has approached the Bill; he has indeed listened. However, if someone is listening, they should take sufficient time to work out what they are going to do as a consequence of what they have heard. He might have felt somewhat rushed by the fact that we have had one day on Report, with a second day now under way, and felt that he had to announce these proposals before they had been properly written down. It would have been better, in process terms, and would have shortened the debate—certainly, shortened his speech—if we had taken a few more days before getting to the second day on Report. We would then have had before us proposals that were fully written out and that we could consider and debate in the normal way. As it is, we will end up taking even more time and there will be even more worries about the content of what is proposed. However, as I said to the hon. Member for Epping Forest earlier, those proposals are not before us tonight: not in this group of new clauses and amendments, nor in any group. Instead, we have before us new clauses about data sharing. Because of the debates that have been going on in the Committee on the Coroners and Justice Bill, many of us are rather more sensitive to the problems raised—
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- Mr. HoggConservative
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- I agree with an awful lot of what the hon. Gentleman has said. The truth is that we do not know the detail of, and we will not have the opportunity properly to discuss, the nature of the amendments to be moved in the other place. Does he agree that the proper thing to do now is to recommit the relevant parts of the Bill to a Public Bill Committee where the Government can table their amendments to be considered and reported back to this House on a further Report stage?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- The right hon. and learned Gentleman is entirely correct, given the momentous nature of the new clauses that will be proposed in the other place and the fact that they are about electing Members to this place and nothing to do with what happens in the other place.
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- Chris RuaneLabour
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- The hon. Gentleman has expressed his concerns about databases. I think that 420 electoral registration authorities currently have access to local government databases. Can he name one occasion when those databases have been corrupted or shared when they should not have been?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- I do not know of any off the top of my head, but my point concerns the nature of the powers that are being offered in the new clause, which have not been properly examined. As I said, because of the debate that took place in the Committee considering the Coroners and Justice Bill, there is a great deal more sensitivity in the House about the problems raised by data-sharing orders than there has been, particularly regarding the role of the Information Commissioner in introducing such orders. Also—
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Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I should be most grateful if there were an opportunity to put new clause 23 to a vote on the grounds that it is consistent with decisions previously taken by the House about the security of hon. Members’ home addresses. [Interruption.]
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- Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal)Labour
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- Order. In view of the comments that the hon. Gentleman has made, I have decided that in the circumstances he has outlined, I will select new clause 23 for a separate decision. New Clause 23 Candidate at parliamentary election may withhold home address from publication ‘(1) Schedule 1 to the 1983 Act (parliamentary elections rules) is amended as follows. (2) In rule 6 (nomination of candidates)— (a) sub-paragraph (b) of paragraph (2) is omitted; (b) after paragraph (3) there is inserted— “(4) The nomination paper must be accompanied by a form (in this Schedule referred to as the “home address form”) which states the candidate’s— (a) full names, and (b) home address in full. Provision in paragraph (1) above about delivery of the nomination paper applies also to the home address form. (5) The home address form— (a) may contain a statement made and signed by the candidate that he requires the home address not to be made public; and (b) if it does so, must state the constituency within which that address is situated (or, if that address is outside the United Kingdom, the country within which it is situated).” (3) In rule 11 (right to attend nomination)— (a) in paragraph (3), after “nomination paper” there is inserted “and associated home address form”; (b) after paragraph (4) there is inserted— “(5) The returning officer shall not permit a home address form to be inspected otherwise than in accordance with this rule, or for some other purpose authorised by law.” (4) In rule 12 (validity of nomination papers), in paragraph (1)— (a) after “consent to it” there is inserted “and the home address form”; (b) after sub-paragraph (a) there is inserted— “(aa) the returning officer decides that the home address form does not comply with rule 6(4); or”. (5) In rule 14 (publication of statement of persons nominated), after paragraph (3) there is inserted— “(3A) In relation to a nominated person in whose case the home address form (or, if the person is nominated by more than one nomination paper, any of the home address forms) contains— (a) the statement mentioned in rule 6(5)(a), and (b) the information mentioned in rule 6(5)(b), the reference in paragraph (2) to the person’s address shall be read as a reference to the information mentioned in rule 6(5)(b).” (6) After paragraph (4) of that rule there is inserted— “(4A) Where— (a) two or more of the names shown on the statement are the same or so similar as to be likely to cause confusion, (b) paragraph (3A) applies in relation to each of the persons in question, and (c) the information mentioned in rule 6(5)(b) is the same for each of them, the returning officer may cause any of their particulars to be shown on the statement with such amendments or additions as the officer thinks appropriate in order to reduce the likelihood of confusion. (4B) Where it is practicable to do so before the publication of the statement, the returning officer shall consult any person whose particulars are to be amended or added to under paragraph (4A). (4C) The returning officer must give notice in writing to any person whose particulars are amended or added to under paragraph (4A). (4D) Anything done by a returning officer in pursuance of paragraph (4A) must not be questioned in any proceedings other than proceedings on an election petition. (4E) A returning officer must have regard to any guidance issued by the Electoral Commission for the purposes of paragraph (4A).” (7) Before rule 54 there is inserted— “Destruction of home address forms 53A The returning officer shall destroy each candidate’s home address form— (a) on the next working day following the 21st day after the officer has returned the name of the member elected; or (b) if an election petition questioning the election or return is presented before that day, on the next working day following the conclusion of proceedings on the petition or on appeal from such proceedings.”’.—(Dr. Julian Lewis.) Brought up. Question put, That the clause be added to the Bill. The House proceeded to a Division.
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- Mr. HeathLiberal Democrat
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- On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether there is any precedent for taking a Division on a completely undebated new clause, which falls in a later group that we have not yet reached, which is in the hands of Back Benchers from an Opposition party and which has not even been moved. Is there a precedent for that?
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- Madam Deputy SpeakerLabour
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- I have made a decision, and given my ruling and the reasons why this vote has been taken. I have nothing further to add.
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- Madam Deputy SpeakerLabour
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- We now have a number of consequential amendments to deal with. With the leave of the House, I would like to take them together.
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- Madam Deputy SpeakerLabour
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- Very well. We now come to amendment 140, which is to be moved formally. Schedule 4 Minor and consequential amendments Amendment proposed: 140, in page 44, line 24, at end insert— ‘ In section 65A (false statements in nomination papers etc), in subsection (1), after paragraph (a) there is inserted— “(aa) (where the election is a parliamentary election) a statement under rule 6(5)(b) of Schedule 1 to this Act which he knows to be false in any particular; or”.’.—(Dr. Julian Lewis.) Question put, That the amendment be made.
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Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. My understanding is that we voted on new clause 23 although it had never been moved. Could we vote on my amendments 84 and 85, which were supported by 216 Members of Parliament? I think we should vote on those amendments.
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- Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal)Labour
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- Order. We are governed by a programme motion, and the opportunity to vote on any earlier amendments has now passed.
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- Dr. StrangLabour
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- On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The decision to allow a vote on new clause 23, which was in a group that had not been reached, was of course within your discretion, but can you confirm that it is very unusual for the Speaker to allow that to happen? Given that the issues raised in the new clause are quite different in the context of the additional costs allowance, are you at liberty to explain why you allowed a vote to take place on new clause 23, which had not been reached and had never been discussed?
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- Madam Deputy SpeakerLabour
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- The Chair does not give reasons for a decision that has been made. I have made a ruling, and that is the end of the matter.
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- Mr. HoggConservative
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- On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, which relates to a completely different matter. You were in the Chair when the Minister made a very important announcement about personal registration. You heard the Minister say that the Government intend to table amendments in the other place. This House has never had an opportunity to consider them, or even to see them in draft. We have not a clue what the Government will do. Will you, Madam Deputy Speaker, exercise your undoubted discretion to accept a motion without notice to recommit the relevant parts of the Bill to the Standing Committee, so that the Government can table their intended amendments, and the Committee can consider them and report back to the House? That would enable very important amendments to be considered by this place and not, in the first instance, by the other place.
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- Madam Deputy SpeakerLabour
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- This House passed a programme motion relating to the Bill on 9 February, and we must proceed in accordance with it. Amendment proposed: 141, page 44, line 24, at end insert— ‘(1) Section 70 (effect of default in election agent’s appointment) is amended as follows. (2) In subsection (4)(a), after “the statement as to persons nominated” there is inserted “(or where, in the case of a parliamentary election, the address is not given on that statement, the address as given under rule 6(4) of Schedule 1 to this Act)”. (3) After subsection (6) there is inserted— “(7) In the case of a parliamentary election, subsection (6) above applies whether or not a statement has been made under rule 6(5) of Schedule 1 to this Act requiring the candidate’s home address not to be made public.”’.—(Dr. Julian Lewis.) Question put, That the amendment be made.
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- Pete WishartScottish National Party
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- On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In an extraordinary precedent, a Division has been allowed on new clause 23, although it has not been considered or properly debated. My new clause 18 is also in that category. Given that precedent, may we have a Division on the important issue of returning powers over the Scottish Parliament’s electoral systems to the Scottish Parliament? I ask that we be allowed to put that to the vote.
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- Mr. HoggConservative
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- Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Without in any sense wishing to question the discretion of the Chair, may I say that I am profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of voting on a matter that the House has had no opportunity of discussing?
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I, too, am disturbed by what has happened, but given what Madam Deputy Speaker said about amendment 84, which the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) tried to raise—that it could not be voted on because it fell at 7 o’clock—I cannot see why new clause 18, tabled by the Scottish nationalists, should not now be voted on.
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- Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)Conservative
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- Order. I cannot add a great deal to the ruling that has already been given from the Chair. We are operating under a programme motion, and the Chair determines which amendments can be taken. Rulings have been made, to which I shall add by saying that I am unable to accept for Division the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). Amendment made: 142, page 44, line 24 at end insert— ‘ (1) Schedule 1 (parliamentary elections rules) is amended as follows. (2) In rule 6 (nomination of candidates), in paragraph (2)(a) after “names,” there is inserted “and”. (3) In rule 14A (correction of minor errors)— (a) in paragraph (1), after “nomination paper” there is inserted “or home address form”; (b) in paragraph (2), after sub-paragraph (b) there is inserted— “(c) in the home address form, errors as to the information mentioned in rule 6(5)(b).” (4) In the Appendix of forms, in the Form of nomination paper, in the first table following the words “candidate at the said election”, the final column (home address) is omitted.”’.—(Dr. Julian Lewis.) Schedule 5 Repeals Amendment made: 143, page 47, line 14 at end insert— ‘In Schedule 1—.(a) in rule 6, sub-paragraph (b) of paragraph (2);(b) in the Appendix of forms, in the Form of nomination paper, in the first table following the words “candidate at the said election”, the final column.’.—(Dr. Julian Lewis) Clause 23 Commencement Amendments made: 120, in page 14, line 31 [Clause 23], leave out subsection (3). Amendment 39, page 14, line 39 leave out paragraph (c) and insert— ‘(c) section 12,’.—(Mr. Wills.) Schedule 4 Minor and Consequential amendments Amendments made: Amendment 40, in page 44, line 24 at end insert— ‘3A In section 76A (power to vary provisions about election expenses), after paragraph (d) of subsection (2) there is inserted— “(e) section 76ZA(2) above.”’.— Amendment 41, in page 44, line 24 at end insert— ‘3B In section 90ZA (meaning of “election expenses”), for subsection (5) there is substituted— “(5) A reference in this Part of this Act to a candidate at an election, in relation to election expenses, includes (where the context allows) a reference to a person who becomes a candidate at the election after the expenses are incurred.”’. Amendment 29, in page 45, line 39 at end insert— ‘ In section 149 (inspection of Commission’s registers etc), in subsection (1), after paragraph (d) there is inserted— “(e) paragraph 19 of Schedule 7”.’.—(Mr. Wills.) Schedule 5 Repeals Amendments made 42, in page 47, line 12 at end insert— ‘In section 76A(2), the word “or” at the end of paragraph (c).’. Amendment 43, in page 47 leave out lines 13 and 14. Amendment 30, in page 47, line 18 at end insert— ‘In section 149(1), the word “or” at the end of paragraph (c).’.—(Mr. Wills.)
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- Mr. Deputy SpeakerConservative
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- We now come to Third Reading. I call Jack Straw.
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- Mr. HeathLiberal Democrat
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- On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have been experimenting this evening with a procedure that is unfamiliar to almost anyone in the House or outside, but, once a new clause has been given a Second Reading, is it not normal for it to be added to the Bill and for the opportunity for a Division to be taken? Given that we are now on Third Reading, has that procedure been followed?
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- Mr. Deputy SpeakerConservative
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- Not after 9 o’clock, when the timetable has come into effect. I understand that there is some concern in the House, although the procedures that have been followed are usual in every way if one looks at the terms of the programme motion that the House adopted. Sometimes, hon. Members may be surprised, if not disappointed.
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Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether it is possible to say whether the Speaker could be a little more open about decisions when they are surprising and unusual. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] Let me use a different word. Would it be possible for the Deputy Speaker to explain more clearly why a decision is made when that decision is somewhat unusual?
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- Mr. Deputy SpeakerConservative
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- The right hon. Gentleman is experienced enough to know that the Chair does not give reasons for the decision, and that has always been the traditional position of the Chair.
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Simon HughesLiberal Democrat- Quote
- Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. On the matter of the new clause that was moved earlier—[Interruption] It was voted on without being moved, but we had only one vote. Would you be kind enough to look at page 623 of “Erskine May”? It says very clearly: “The last question proposed by the Speaker is, ‘That the clause (or the clause as amended) be added to the bill’”. May I also draw your attention to the fact that there have been two programme motions—on 20 October last year and 9 February this year—neither of which changed that ruling in “Erskine May” or the Standing Orders? May I ask you for your considered ruling, or that of Mr. Speaker tomorrow, that might determine that we have voted on the first part of a procedure that could have added a new clause to the Bill but not on the second part and therefore that that new clause has not been added to the Bill?
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- Mr. Deputy SpeakerConservative
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- I can give the hon. Gentleman a ruling straight away. What has happened is entirely clear. Once the knife has fallen at 9 o’clock, a single question is all that is required. That is the procedure, which the House has followed.
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- Mr. HeathLiberal Democrat
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- Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. [Interruption.] I am sorry to weary the House with this boring bit of procedure, which involves whether we debate a matter before it is added to a Bill, but does not that procedure specify that it relates to all Government amendments and new clauses, and was this not a Back Bencher’s amendment or new clause, which is quite different?
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- Mr. Deputy SpeakerConservative
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- There is a distinction between the amendments and new clauses proposed by the Government and all other amendments. Again, the programme specifies what is to happen. If the hon. Gentleman looks at that, it will be quite clear. I am not without advice on this, but nothing has happened this evening that is in any way different, as far as I am aware, from any previous occasion. We have followed the terms of the programme motion, which is not, in itself, essentially different from many of the programme motions that have come before the House.
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- Simon HughesLiberal Democrat
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- Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I want to proceed only because it is fundamentally important that the House decides collectively the rules that we apply to Back Benchers and Opposition Members and new clauses. I asked earlier whether anyone could cite a precedent for a debate and a decision to add a new clause that had not been discussed on Report, and I am told that there is no precedent—certainly, nothing that anyone can cite to me. I have looked at the Standing Orders. I have looked in the programme motions that govern the Bill. Is it not normally the case that, where those things are silent, the Speaker or the acting Speaker in the Chair rules in favour of the existing procedure, not a new procedure? May I ask you and your colleagues to reflect between now and tomorrow on whether we have unwittingly broken the rules and whether we can therefore ensure that the new clause introduced by the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), but not moved, has an opportunity for debate during later proceedings?
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- Mr. Deputy SpeakerConservative
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- I should first say that the term “acting Speaker” is certainly not in the Standing Orders. Standing Order 83E(2)(c) speaks of “The question on any amendment, new clause or new schedule selected by the Speaker for separate decision”. That is clear. Subsection (3) states: “On a motion made for a new clause or a new schedule, the Speaker shall put only the question that the clause or schedule be added to the bill.” I do not believe that there is any further scope for argument about that matter; otherwise, I would tell the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] I have told him—I have done so on advice—that no breach in procedure has occurred during this evening’s proceedings. I hope that he will accept that ruling from the Chair and not ask further questions. If he seeks to challenge what has been said, I suggest he write a letter to Mr. Speaker, but I do not believe that anything incorrect has taken place at any stage this evening.
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Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)Liberal Democrat- Quote
- Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You were correct in saying that the decision taken is that the new clause be added to the Bill if that is moved, but it was not in my hearing that any hon. Member anywhere in the House moved that that new clause be added to the Bill. I do not think that it was in the Clerk’s hearing, but I am sure that you will be advised if it was. I do not think that it was in the hearing of the Deputy Speaker who was in the Chair at the time. I never heard those words used. I do not know whether anyone did.
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- Mr. Deputy SpeakerConservative
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- Again, as far as my advice goes—I was not in the Chair at that moment—the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) moved the Question on the new clause, on which the House voted.
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- Dr. Julian LewisConservative
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- On a separate point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is there any way in which, within the rules, I can place on the 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?
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- Mr. Deputy SpeakerConservative
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- Order. I do not think that is a matter on which the hon. Gentleman—or, indeed, the House—should want me to rule. I think it is absolutely clear that there was a vote on Dr. Lewis’s new clause, which the Chair accepted. It was a single vote, and I do not think anyone could have been in any doubt about what was happening at that time. [Interruption.] I have given my advice to the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). He is an experienced Member of the House, and if he is disputing what has happened this evening I suggest he write to Mr. Speaker, because there is now very little time left for the Secretary of State to move Third Reading, which I now call on him to do. Third Reading
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- Mr. StrawIndependent
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- I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. In the short time available to me, I wish to place on record my thanks to all those on both sides of the House who have worked to make this Bill better. It began its journey as a set of proposals in a White Paper, which I brought before the House in June last year. It was introduced on 17 July, and there was then a three-month period over the summer break for Members to consider it. Its Second Reading was on 20 October, it moved upstairs into Committee in November and it has been back on the Floor of the House on two days—in February and now in early March. The Bill is now different from the Bill that was published on First Reading, and it has, in our judgment, been improved. One of the reasons why we have had to take time over it, and in some cases introduce amendments at quite a late stage, is that we have been listening with great care to representations made on both sides. We have sought wherever we can to improve the Bill, and I believe that it has been improved. The provenance of the Bill goes back to the establishment of the Hayden Phillips inquiry more than three years ago. That time scale is similar to that of the original Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The reason why that Act and this Bill have taken so much time is twofold. First, party funding is inherently complicated—we have just had a little introduction to that. Secondly, and more importantly, from whatever perspective Members may start debating—and it can sometimes be very partisan—they have in general been careful to recognise the importance of not seeking partisan advantage in the regime for party funding and elections. That was certainly the approach I took in 1999 and 2000 in respect of what became the 2000 Act, and I have taken the same approach on this occasion. In the Bill, we have achieved major reform of the Electoral Commission and important reforms in respect of donations and expenditure, including by establishing an upgraded regime for unincorporated associations. We have also achieved significant advances in respect of electoral registration.
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- Pete WishartScottish National Party
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- Does the Secretary of State not agree that what we are passing tonight is nothing other than a complete mouse of a Bill? All the public’s concerns about cuts in political donations and about trade union funding have been totally ignored. Should we not be ashamed of ourselves tonight for passing such a timid Bill?
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- Mr. StrawIndependent
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- That was not an intervention about Third Reading; it was merely a rant, and we shall leave it at that. On electoral registration, I repeat the point made by the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills). I appreciate the concern that there will not have been a chance to discuss the new clauses on registration in this place. I shall therefore make two commitments. First, we shall use our best endeavours to have them discussed informally in draft with the parties before they go to the other place and, secondly, we shall use our best endeavours with the usual channels to ensure that there is adequate time to discuss them when they return. With that, I commend that the Bill be read the Third time.
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Mr. Francis Maude (Horsham) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- Tonight’s episode has been a pretty unseemly end to what I believe the Justice Secretary will admit has not been a particularly glorious legislative process that the Bill has gone through in this House. The Bill started life in autumn last year as a thoroughly partisan measure designed to achieve—let us face it—political advantage. The policy goals were exceptionally poorly thought through, leaving the unfortunate parliamentary draftsman an impossible task. The main provisions attracted significant criticism from all sides; the Electoral Commission pointed out that a number went well beyond what it had sought and that other provisions provided no benefit and had a significant downside. All the political parties, including his own, attacked several of the Bill’s original provisions. The storm of obloquy that the Bill attracted prompted the Secretary of State to return, belatedly, to the path of discussion and common sense, even if consensus was not achieved in all matters. The requirement to verify the source of donations was sensibly dropped, the powers for the Electoral Commission were sensibly trimmed back and the thoroughly partisan proposal to reintroduce triggering was dropped; the Bill is completely different from what was introduced in the autumn of last year. This has been achieved much less by dint of having full and open debate in the Commons—in this House and in Committee—because of the rigidity of the programme motion that was introduced, which allowed very little scope for the sort of matters that my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) raised this evening and has led to what most of the House would recognise to have been a fairly unseemly process. The Bill is a massive missed opportunity to deal with the big donor culture by having a genuine across-the-board cap on donations.
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- David HowarthLiberal Democrat
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- rose—
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- Mr. MaudeConservative
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- I do not have time to give way. The Liberal Democrats have occupied enough air time tonight and I am certainly not going to give them any more. There was a real opportunity to put together a cap that would have applied to all donations, including those to political parties from trade union affiliation fees. At some stage these issues will need to be addressed thoroughly. Every effort should be made at all times to seek consensus on these matters. I am glad that at the eleventh hour the Government have, at last, agreed to move ahead with individual voter registration, albeit in what still seems to be a lamentably leisurely time scale. They committed to the principle of individual voter registration many years ago, but a bit like St. Augustine, they seem to be saying, “Make me chaste, but not yet.” Some Labour Back Benchers seemed to be suggesting that this process, which is scheduled not to be completed until 2015, should be allowed to run yet further, but that is quite wrong. We approve of the decision to go ahead, and we believe that what is sought can be accomplished earlier than that. We believe that it could be accomplished by 2013, and there is support even from the Electoral Commission for that. It would be our intention that that should be achieved. Much progress has been made, not all of it willingly, especially in the early stages by the Government, and because the Bill is now such a very different—
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