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Political Parties (Funding)

The Labour party received £36,000 from Enron. The Secretary of State seems to have forgotten about that. I notice that he did not challenge the reference to PowderJect and all the others, either. There is only one solution to the problem of large donations: to impose a cap on them. That cap has to be comprehensive and binding on trade unions—which wield enormous influence—companies and individuals, including Michael Ashcroft. The leader of my party, to his great credit, has recognised that and has been prepared to propose bold reforms. The reason we are here today, and the reason we have not got a settlement, is that so far the Labour party has not been prepared to come with us. Under the current Prime Minister, we have not seen any evidence of real commitment to reform. Perhaps I should contrast that with what happened when I was initially involved in the negotiations two years ago. Then, it was quite clear that Tony Blair was prepared to undertake fundamental reform. He knew how dangerous it was for Labour to become too dependent on the unions for cash. That is probably why he got Lord Levy in at the beginning, more than a decade ago, to find some big donors to counterbalance union influence. It may have ended in tears, but it worked for Tony Blair for a time. He always knew that if he had to do without the unions, he could, and the union bosses knew that too. It is so sad that we have had no substantive response to the scandal from the current Prime Minister. His statement on Saturday was completely substance-free. It was little more than an effort to deflect attention from what was going on in his party. In some ways, it was worse than that, because he distorted the truth. He alleged that Hayden Phillips had recommended local spending limits when he had done nothing of the sort.