---

Political Parties: Funding

My Lords, the proposals outlined are a very modest step towards the further necessary reform of the system for controlling the funding and expenditure of political parties. Of course, they will be welcomed on these Benches, although I suspect that we and many others will wish that they had gone much further than is proposed. The appointment of some members of the Electoral Commission with hands-on party political experience will be very welcome and was argued for by these Benches and by others with relevant experience during the passage of the legislation in 2000. We want the Commission to be effective and realistic. We believe that these proposals will help. We want it to have greater investigatory powers and for it to flush out into the open the activities of unincorporated associations that try to hide behind a cloak of anonymity to fund certain political parties. The proposals for expenditure controls are very modest. We argued in 2000 for lower limits to what parties can spend during election campaigns. Reintroducing the trigger for the start of the period in which election expenses are limited and increasing the categories for expenditure that must be included within limits will help. But it would have been easier and better to have simply reduced the amounts that parties can legally spend. Reducing the disproportionate influence of a few rich men—a number of whom sit in this House or have aspired to do so—is a worthy aim. But these proposals do not substantially address the problem that our system allows millions of pounds to be worth more in real influence than millions of votes. I hope that the Minister will confirm that this is not the Government's last word on party funding. He will understand that we seek to go further more rapidly. Furthermore, will he accept that while no one party should be able to secure partisan advantage by changing the system in its favour, no one party should be able to benefit disproportionately from the largesse of a few millionaires by vetoing further steps towards reform?