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Political Parties: Funding

My Lords, my noble friend posed three questions. The first was, why public funding? All I can do is refer him to page 17 ofSir Hayden’s report, where three reasons are given. First, measures in this report will restrict the money available because it will cap donations. Secondly, things are going up in price. Thirdly, there is adecline in democratic engagement in this country, manifested in falling election turnouts and falling party membership roles. Those are the reasons he advances; I can do no better than refer to what he has said. My noble friend’s second question was about what difference much of the party expenditure makes—helicopters, posters and so on. He is just a good a judge of that as I, but I agree that some election expenditure has the effect of turning the electorate off political parties rather than turning them on. His third question related to a statutory Appointments Commission. That is something we luxuriated in for two days at the beginning of this week. The Appointments Commission currently does a pretty good job but I can see a strong case for at the very least putting the Appointments Commission on a statutory basis and making other changes to this House as well.