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Political Parties and Elections Bill

I shall speak briefly also to Amendment 109, although my noble friend Lord Rennard may have something more to say about it, and I shall be exceedingly brief in dealing with Amendment 143, which is simply the implementation timetable for Amendment 108 in Clause 29. Amendment 108 seeks to insert a new clause after Clause 12. This brings us back to Hayden Phillips and to rather more meaty issues than we have so far dealt with in Committee today because it concerns a cap on donations. Before I go into detail, I remind the Committee of the comment of Andrew Tyrie, who is regarded on all sides of the House of the Commons, and perhaps in your Lordships’ House as well, as an expert, having studied these issues for many years. He asked my honourable friend David Howarth: ""Does he agree that we cannot arrive at the point at which one party can have a veto over change if it were clearly what the overwhelming majority of voters concluded would enable greater public trust to be restored in such matters?".—[Official Report, Commons, Political Parties and Elections Bill Committee, 20/11/08; col. 414.]" That should be our text. If we are going to seek always a consensus at the lowest common denominator, we shall not be able to in any way meet the expectations of the public. I give full credit to the Minister, his team, his department and the Government for introducing the Bill, but if it remains as weak as it is at the moment on this vital issue, the public will regard us all as having wasted an important opportunity, one that may not come again for some years. As we all know, the legislative timetable is such that we are not always able to address issues speedily when they are first brought to our attention. Amendment 108 seeks to insert a new clause which absolutely follows the near agreement in the Hayden Phillips discussions. It would introduce a £50,000 cap on donations from a single individual or organisation in any given year. This is entirely in line with the Phillips recommendations, which I shall turn to again in a moment, and is key to proposals on our side of your Lordships’ House to take the big money out of politics. Wealthy individuals, organisations and companies should not be able to buy influence, whether through policies or peerages. The inequality of influence generated by massive donations runs entirely counter to democratic principles and certainly erodes public trust. I shall not go all the way though the Hayden Phillips recommendations, but I want to read his rationale. He said: ""At the 2005 general election it was clear that the two main parties were each determined that they should not be outspent by the other. The combined expenditure in the 12 months leading up to the election rose to around £90 million, as against about £65 million in the 2001 election. The increase came about despite the controls on general election campaign expenditure introduced in 2000. Driven by a determination to gain a competitive advantage over their opponents, it is no surprise that the parties will seek large donations to fuel their spending. If we are to arrest this pattern, we must address both the income and expenditure sides of the equation"." That is a simple summary not just of the responsibility laid on us in this Committee but on Parliament generally. It is laid on us after very careful discussion and negotiation within the inter-party talks, chaired by Sir Hayden Phillips. His summary was as follows: ""I believe that there is an emerging consensus that … the status quo, in which there are no caps on donations, is unsustainable and therefore donations to parties should be limited; and … restrictions on donations should be buttressed by measures to prevent breaches of the new regulations"." He went on to say: ""We do not yet have a consensus on the level and scope of a donations limit. This must now be addressed in direct talks between the parties. I would encourage them to work towards a long-term solution which is common to all parties. But a common ""approach cannot be delivered in the short term. It will be necessary to have a transitional period during which parties are able to adapt to the future regime. What matters is that the solution is fair and sustainable and it is arrived at through agreement"." I regard Parliament as the place where agreement is reached between the parties, not least in your Lordships’ House where Cross-Benchers have an important contribution to make on these issues. The rest of us are, to some extent, interested parties. It is two years since Hayden Phillips published those recommendations—it was in March 2007— after careful consideration. It therefore seems to me that it should be up to Parliament to give a lead on what should happen next. We should not expect the issue to be kicked back to the representatives of the political parties, and certainly it should not be discussed in secret behind closed doors. It should be discussed in the nation’s debating chamber: in Parliament. In the debate in the other place on a new clause along the lines I have indicated, tabled and introduced by my honourable friend Mr David Howarth, the Conservative spokesman from the Front Bench said that the Bill was a tinkering exercise rather than an overhaul, but that the Conservative Party would remain willing to seek that overhaul. Mr Andrew Tyrie, to whom I have already made reference today, argued in that debate that the intentions of new Clause 1 went to the heart of what we are trying to achieve in any reform of party funding, which is to restore trust in the source of donations. He said that he would like to support new Clause 1 in principle, as his Front Bench team probably would. Successively in the other place and in your Lordships’ House at Second Reading, Ministers have been saying, "There is no consensus. There cannot be any consensus. We are not reaching consensus". Yet it would seem there really are grounds for believing that a consensus could be reached. Here are substantial arguments from the Conservative Party, which seems to believe that we could and should reach that consensus. No doubt there are members of the Labour Party in both Houses who take that view, too. What seems to be lacking is the Government’s willingness to give a lead. It may be because they are reluctant to tackle this issue until that of trade union contributions to political parties is also tackled. Hence, we have linked with Amendment 108 Amendment 109, which deals with this issue. I hope that my noble friend Lord Rennard will speak more substantially to that amendment. Members of the Committee will recognise that we have sought to produce a holistic package, just as the Hayden Phillips talks sought to produce a holistic package so that everybody could see that there was a fair and equal approach to these issues. I shall not say any more at this stage, because I am looking forward very much to hearing from other noble Lords, not least the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, who speaks with great authority on these issues and who has endorsed our Amendment 108. When the Minister and others have contributed, perhaps I may come back. Meanwhile, I beg to move.