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Political Parties and Elections Bill

I was waiting to see whether the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, would come in first and talk about the trade unions. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said, the two issues are linked and, therefore, one cannot talk about one without talking about the other—at least to a degree. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I think that everyone is saying that we must arrive at consensus. The problem is that nobody can arrive at what that consensus should be, which is why the Sir Hayden Phillips talks collapsed. Although everybody wanted a consensus, that consensus was not arrived at. It is the detail that is the important factor, not the fact that everyone wants to do something about this. It is very clear from all the discussions that a great deal of complexity has to be dealt with when looking at this issue. I sincerely hope that some agreement can be reached at some point. At the moment, I do not think that to put such an amendment into the Bill is the answer. I think that we have to reach consensus. One thing that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, did not refer to except in passing when he talked about us all spending too much at general elections—he talked about the main two political parties spending enormous amounts of money, with which I might well agree—was that, if the amendment were to become part of the Bill, there would be a shortfall of something like £5 million to £6 million in what the political parties could spend. That is quite a lot of money. Both the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 1998, which I am sure we will hear more about, and the Sir Hayden Phillips review of 2007 said that if there was to be a cap on donations we would have to look at an increase in state funding. No mention was made of that by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I do not think that the moment is right to suggest to the public that we should look to state funding for political parties. Again, that is why I do not think that the amendment is appropriate at this time. However, we need to have the debate and continue to have it until, maybe, some great minds will come round and we will be able to come to some conclusion. I wanted to ask the Minister a question before coming to the trade union side of this matter. If this amendment was carried, would public funds such as the Short money be affected by this amendment and also be capped? That would have quite a serious affect on opposition parties. On the trade unions, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, has not made his case, and I think that I shall not make my comments at this point but wait until he has made his so I can respond to them properly. I shall make one comment only about the trade unions—that they are, perhaps, the most regulated of all bodies. We shall see how the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, responds to that and I shall come back to it.