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Political Parties (Funding)

I am most grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The heat has been taken off the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) by the game refusal of Ms Wendy Alexander, the Labour leader in the Scottish Parliament, to resign. She is, of course, a friend and ally of the Prime Minister. Although we quite accept that she would not deliberately have tried to commit a criminal offence for the lowly sum of £950, we have to ask what she could have been thinking of, given that the Jersey-based donor, Mr. Paul Green, said today on Scottish radio:"““This has to be gross mismanagement…I cannot understand why they””—" meaning the Labour party—"““continue to maintain that the donation had come through a UK company when I had a letter from Wendy Alexander thanking me personally.””" May I ask the Minister whether the Prime Minister has full confidence in Ms Wendy Alexander and her competence? The fact is that she is the Prime Minister's lightning rod—if she were to resign, it could lead to a domino effect of further resignations, starting with that of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), deputy leader of the Labour party, in relation to whom the Prime Minister said:"““The money was not lawfully declared.””" Although the British public are not much impressed by the rank incompetence that I have described, there is something that they dislike more: Labour self-serving. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has famously proposed for all parties a cap on donations—whether given by businessmen, individuals or trade unions—to reduce dependency on large donors. We heard about it in detail from my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie). Shamefully, the Labour party has blocked the proposal, asserting that union affiliation fees should be exempt from any cap on donations. Yet those fees are decided by union bosses; they are not the result of the active decisions of individual union members to donate to the Labour party. We are asked to believe that a donation from a trade unionist is independent while a block donation from a trade union is not. The Labour party national executive committee has pledged on the record vigorously to oppose plans for capping. It has said:"““the Labour Party cannot accept a statutory uniform donation cap…it would undermine the Labour Party federal structure””." Yet Sir Hayden Phillips stated:"““a limit on donations need not in my view challenge the Party's constitutional relationship with the trade unions””." Why did he say that, and why did the union paymasters say something different? Is it a coincidence that the Labour Government are moving ahead with more than 60 concessions to the trade union movement under the banner of the 2004 Warwick agreement? That deal included a £10 million taxpayer-funded modernisation fund for the unions, the weakening of anti-strike legislation and the shelving of plans to align the retirement age for public sector workers with that for private sector workers—a disgrace. Labour's logic—I hope the House will forgive the exaggeration—is flawed and self-serving. Last summer, the Prime Minister promised to take crime off the streets; we did not know that he was going to shove it into Labour HQ.