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Political Parties (Funding)

The investigation will be a matter for the Durham police. If they feel that there are matters to be investigated, they will investigate them, but if they feel that there are no such matters, they will not investigate. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman's question. The refusal of the donations by the Prime Minister's campaign team is a matter of public interest. Given the climate of opinion following the cash for peerages affair, did the Labour party's treasurer, chairman, secretary or chief fundraiser—or indeed anyone in a position of responsibility in the party—ask about the processes in place for clearing donations? Was guidance given to anyone who might be in receipt of such a donation? Were systems in place to apply the guidance given by the Electoral Commission? Does the Lord Chancellor seriously want the House to believe that the general secretary of the Labour party, who not only received the guidance from the Electoral Commission but was asked to comment on it, was ignorant of the meaning of the words that he read on the paper? He struck me as a very intelligent man who purported to have some integrity, yet he apparently did not understand the words that were put in front of him. I find that difficult to believe. Was any guidance given to the candidates in the deputy leadership election about what their donation rules should be? If so, why did several candidates apparently not declare donations given, in clear contravention of the rules? What role did Mr. Chris Leslie play? Why did he put the Leader of the House's campaign team in touch with Mrs. Kidd? Why did he turn down the money? Did he know the connection with Mr. David Abrahams? Baroness Jay apparently did know that a proxy donor was involved. How did she know that? Did she know the connection with Mr. Abrahams? Did she know Mr. Abrahams? Did she tell anybody else? What precisely led Mr. Abrahams to want anonymity in the first place, given that he gave many donations with no recourse to anonymity in many other areas of public life? He was not reticent in his pattern of donations, so why was it only in the case of the Labour party that he wanted to hide a donation? Is it true that Wendy Alexander has been advised not to resign because to do so might have a knock-on consequence for the Leader of the House's position? If so, who gave that advice and why? These serious issues will not go away, but we have had many other donation rows—on cash for peerages, on the Bernie Ecclestone affair, on the Midlands Industrial Council, which has been mentioned, and on several other issues. Labour Members can cite several examples from a sedentary position; I am sure that it all helps the argument.