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Political Parties and Elections Bill

The hon. Gentleman can make that point and argue it. What we are discussing is an issue relating to the internal organisation of the Labour party. It is perfectly valid for Opposition Members to say that it has been a weakness in the Labour party's relationship with the trade unions. To pick up a point made by the right hon. Member for Horsham, when it comes to making a distinction between donations and affiliation fees, yes, as he rightly pointed out, one way of achieving that would be to treat affiliation fees as a sum made up of those individual donations. That is one way of doing it, but not the only way. It may be a clever and convenient way of resolving the difference between a donation and an affiliation fee, but for any long-standing trade union activist and member of the Labour party, those are different things. An affiliation fee is an annual payment by the trade union to the Labour party, based on the voluntary political levy. To effect that, the union must hold a ballot every so often. The other is a donation, which might come from a business, an individual or a trade union. That is how many of us in the Labour party see it.