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Political Parties (Funding)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but what he suggests is simply not the case. We had reservations about the proposals all the way through the negotiations. We wanted an agreement so that that long-term, sustainable reform could be put in place, but from the outset we said that the question of union funding had to be addressed. During the course of the discussions, it transpired that the system of affiliation fees was far more backward, and far more of a racket, than we had realised. In those circumstances, the reforms needed to be more radical than was originally envisaged, although their goal—that is, genuinely individual donations—needed to remain the same.