---

Political Parties (Funding)

I am drawing my remarks to a close. Nothing that the Prime Minister said last weekend changed that one iota. If union members had a clear, accessible choice of whether to pay the political levy, and a choice of which party should benefit from that political levy, it could be said with a straight face that the money was genuine individual donations, although even that would leave the unions in a uniquely privileged position. Any renewed discussions need to focus on donations, not on spending limits. All the scandals that have disfigured party funding have arisen from giving to parties, not from parties spending. Before people start talking about the arms race, let us deal with that issue. The Hayden Phillips team made a study of spending trends over the past 15 years. It showed that my party spent less in the last election than we did, in real terms, in 1992. It showed that the bulk of the increase in spending by the major parties in recent years is accounted for by big increases in what the Liberal Democrats spend.