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Political Parties and Elections Bill

Indeed. There remain two particular issues about the workability, scope and breadth of the proposals that I would like to raise. I tabled a series of amendments in a different motion that I understand has not been selected. Nevertheless, there are still important issues for the Government to respond on. The first is a change in the definition of the situation in which a declaration has to be made about tax status. The Government's first attempt at definition talked about someone who causes a donation to be made. In the amendments that the Government then tabled in the Lords, that was changed to an individual making a donation. That seems a much narrower definition. There is a problem that was identified originally by the Government: these proposals do not in terms prevent donations from being made by companies. A lot of the controversy about large donations from abroad has been about companies making donations. It seemed that the Government were attempting to deal with that problem by using the phrase""causing a donation to be made"." That phrase seemed at least to some of us to be applicable to the situation where an individual who controls a company caused that company to make a donation. However, in the new definition proposed by the Lords to us tonight, only an individual making a donation is covered. The use of the word "individual" seems to rule out the possibility of these provisions covering company donations. I know the Government will say that in the situation where an individual gives money to a company with the intention of the company then giving that money to a party, that might count as the individual making the donation, but that is a very narrowly drawn situation which is rather unlikely to happen. What is more likely to happen is for an individual who controls a company to cause the company to make a donation, and the Government seem to have ruled out any control over that particular possibility. I regret that, if it is, indeed, the Government's intention.