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Political Parties: Funding

My Lords, is it not the case that, while my noble friend’s Statement quite rightly focuses both on income and expenditure, for those of us—I hope that it is all of us—who feel that money should not determine the outcome of elections, expenditure is more important than income? That has been the thrust of most electoral law since control on candidates’ expenditure was first introduced at the end of the 19th century. We have had many views on what is going on across the Atlantic where much is said about how wonderful the system is and how it reinvigorates politics. However, what is disturbing to all of us are the colossal sums of money that have to be raised in order for a democratic election to take place these days. Can my noble friend, particularly in the light of those views, that the focus of his attention will be on limiting the amount of money that individual candidates can spend on their campaigns in their constituencies and on putting a tough cap—which I would make more severe than it is at present—on the total amount of money that can be spent in the national campaign? Whatever language we use, it is the expenditure of parties which clearly makes it grossly unfair if one is spending far more than the other.