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Political Parties and Elections Bill

I can help the hon. Gentleman with that. Spending caps were not within Sir Hayden Phillips's terms of reference, which were explicitly about limiting donations. In a spirit of wanting to be as helpful as possible and to build a consensus, we were willing to agree to a global cap on spending, if it was necessary to achieve an overall long-term sustainable package. However, I repeat that we do not consider the level of spending to be the problem. Indeed, Dr. Pinto-Duschinsky's recent research makes it clear that much of the methodology used to show that there is some kind of arms race is flawed.