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Political Parties (Funding)

Of course, I will give way, but I want to make some progress first. Sir Hayden published an interim report in October 2006 and a final set of proposals in March 2007, which formed the basis for intensive discussions led by him, with a view to securing detailed, all-party agreement on the way forward. In that, we were helped by an agreed, unanimous report by the Constitutional Affairs Committee in December last year. Sir Hayden's report dealt with four sets of issues: the Electoral Commission and the regulatory framework; spending limits; donation limits, and state funding. On the first, there is all-party agreement, backed by the Constitutional Affairs Committee and the recent report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. All agree that the Electoral Commission should have a tighter focus on the regulation of political parties and the conduct of elections, and that it should be more proactive in policing the system overall. Reforms to that end will be included in legislation. The second issue is spending limits. When the original reforms were introduced in 1883, election campaigns were conducted over a relatively short period, and almost exclusively locally. However, huge sums of money were spent—equivalent to well over £100 million at today's prices. Those limits worked well so long as campaigning was mainly confined to local constituency campaigns, but with the development of national campaigning from the late 1950s onwards, the old regulatory system became very defective.