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Political Parties (Funding and Expenditure)

I greatly regret the tone adopted by the right hon. Gentleman, and his unsuccessful and thin efforts to rewrite the history of what happened in respect of the Hayden Phillips discussions. For as he knows—and as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who was present, has stated—the truth is that we, the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats all said on 15 March that we were ready to negotiate on the basis of the Hayden Phillips recommendations, and we did so. Indeed, we continued to negotiate on that basis until there was a sudden change, late in the summer of last year, in the policy and approach of the Conservative party. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome told the House that"““the process that led to the breakdown of the talks…was caused by the Conservatives walking away.””—[Official Report, 7 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 224.]" The right hon. Gentleman may, if he wishes, put in a freedom of information request for the minutes, but he has not yet done so. That would deal with this situation, however. An independent individual could judge the issue. We would consider this, but it is a matter for Hayden Phillips, not for me. However, we do not need FOI requests or the minutes of the meeting, because two other Members of this Chamber as well, as the right hon. Gentleman, bear witness to precisely what happened. The truth is that, as we have just witnessed from his partisan approach—which was totally different from the one that he and his party colleagues adopted in the working party—the Conservative party decided to move away from the main recommendations of the Hayden Phillips report. [Interruption.] Did the right hon. Gentleman say, ““Yes””? [Interruption.] Indeed, Hayden Phillips did deal with the issue of trade union funding. We made it clear, before and afterwards, that we were ready to implement what Sir Hayden Phillips proposed, but the Conservative party sought to recommend something very different, breaking not only the spirit of what he had said, but, for example, of what the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee had said. It said, again endorsed by Sir Hayden Phillips, words to the effect that no party had the right by legislation to seek to change the constitution of another party. We have never done so. We could have when we had a very considerable majority in this House back in 1999 and 2000; we still have, and we are not going to do so. The right hon. Gentleman said that there is no arms race. This defies arithmetic and everything that his representatives said in the working party with Sir Hayden. I will quote, if I may, the then Opposition spokesperson on this issue, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert):"““We are much more interested in reducing the cost of politics and that is what David Cameron has made clear.””" So far as Dr. Pinto-Duschinsky's so-called research is concerned—it rather desperately needs some peer reviewing—he very skilfully selects mid-term spending by political parties. He says that there was"““no time to analyse published and unpublished budgets of Labour and Conservative…organisations for 2004, 2005 and 2006””." How convenient, because what we see and what we know is that spending always rises in the last two years before a Parliament is due to end. Had he addressed himself to the available research—the much better research—by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, he would have seen, for example, that spending donations received in local Conservative parties and marginal seats averaged £19,600, compared with £6,500 and £7,700 in Labour and Liberal Democrat marginals. What we—and, I believe, the Liberal Democrats—wish to see, and what the Conservative party wished to see until last summer is sensible, non-partisan rules that we can come together and agree on. I hope that, even at this late stage, the Conservative party will think again.