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Political Parties: Funding

My Lords, it is true that the Statement and the White Paper are about party financing but what we really need to be concerned about is the public’s participation in the political process. The White Paper does not deal with that at all; it simply deals with the financing of political parties. At present, political parties are held in great disdain by the public and we need to return to the days of active participation in political parties by the people of this country. When I joined the Labour Party—I was expelled a few years ago but I remember when I joined it in 1947—it had 1 million individual members and 14 million trade union members. The Tory party had 3 million individual members, and I think that even the Liberal Party had about 40,000 members. Therefore, at that time people were involved in the political process. Now, they feel divorced from it and nothing in the White Paper will alter that. Only decent policies and activity on the ground will bring back the public.