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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

My Lords, I do not know what is registered with the Electoral Commission, and I have not received advice on that. The funding position in Northern Ireland is quite different, and the Bill narrows that. In other words, at present, anyone from anywhere in the world can donate in secret to Northern Ireland political parties. We think that that is wrong and this Bill restricts that. It is not restricted to the level that operates in Great Britain. I do not know whether the political party that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, referred to is registered with the Electoral Commission—and he did not say that it was. These days you cannot go around standing for election willy-nilly, because the commission was designed to police the system. I shall make sure that this point is covered in the notes, because the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, asked a legitimate question that needs to be answered.