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Mr. Garnier: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to refer to matters that are in controversy in a criminal trial? An associate of Mr. Asil Nadir has recently been convicted, but has yet to be sentenced for matters connected with Mr. Asil Nadir. I ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to give guidance to ensure that the hon. Gentleman does not stray too closely into the details of that case.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: All hon. Members should avoid matters that are sub judice. I hope that the hon. Member for Warley, West (Mr. Spellar) will do so.
Mr. Spellar: Obviously I accept your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, although I do not think that these moneys are the subject of the court case. It is interesting that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) does not wish those matters to be discussed.
Mr. Garnier: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Warley, West is misconducting himself. He attributed motives to me in a wholly unworthy way. I have no ulterior motive in drawing to your attention the need for care when we are talking about current criminal cases.
Lady Olga Maitland: My hon. and learned Friend is a QC.
Mr. Garnier: I will ignore that point. If the hon. Member for Warley, West (Mr. Spellar) wishes to make personal remarks, he should confine himself to doing so outside the Chamber.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I thought that I had made that point a moment ago. What we shall now do is get on with the debate.
Mr. Spellar: The Conservative party might be concerned not just about the identities of those who are making the donations but about their motives. Conservative Members might be concerned that the public and some of us here will put two and two together. Earlier, we discussed knighthoods and peerages. The record of appointments to quangos over a number of years--I refer not only to company officers but to their relatives--shows strong links between donations to the Conservative party and appointments to quangos. One sees the creation of a Conservative client state.
Mr. Deva: I am trying to be helpful to the hon. Gentleman. He made the good point that he was worried that people who were in business or in the City had been invited to places such as Downing street and the Department of Trade and Industry to have their opinions heard and perhaps to have a cup of coffee or tea with a Minister. That has caused the hon. Gentleman great concern; I understand where he is coming from. Am I therefore to believe that if, God forbid, a Labour Government ever came to power, no trade unionist would ever be allowed to go into Downing street and that no trade unionist would ever be allowed to go into the Department for Education and Employment? Am I to believe that there would be no beer and sandwiches in smoke-filled rooms?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That must be the last of the long interventions. Interventions are supposed to be brief and to the point.
Mr. Spellar: The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Deva) has missed the point of the measure, which is to create transparency, as I said at the outset. I am sorry to have to repeat that point, but it is worth while if the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam has not taken it on board. The public will draw their conclusions from the facts and arguments by political parties, but the public should do that on the basis of knowledge.
As I mentioned earlier, donations from trades unions are properly recorded under the law. The Bill would ensure that other donations to political parties were made public. That is not exceptional in other democracies, and most democracies have a requirement for the publication of donations and, in many cases, registration of donations and computer print-outs to ensure that the public are making an informed choice. That is the key issue.
Lady Olga Maitland:
Will the hon. Gentleman tell us about the price tag that the trade unions have over their political bosses? Trade unions buy power over the Labour party. They buy 33 per cent. of the votes in Labour's leadership election and candidate selection and 70 per cent. of the votes at Labour's party conference. Frankly, that is a bribe.
Mr. Spellar:
I give way to my hon. Friend.
Mr. Cox:
I am sure that my hon. Friend will adequately respond to point made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland). In 1992, when my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) was the Labour shadow spokesman on employment, he asked many questions about the visits of Ministers to Hong Kong and whether they were engaged in party activities. If I remember rightly, some 13 were found to have been using their official capacities as Ministers to go touting for funds in Hong Kong.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I assume that the hon. Member for Warley, West will reply to both interventions. Before anybody makes another intervention, he must be given an opportunity to reply.
Mr. Spellar:
It is unfortunate, given that I spoke quite slowly when I explained the purpose of the Bill to the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth, that not one jot of that explanation entered the head of the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, who read out her Conservative central office brief again. She still does not understand the basis of the Bill, which is unfortunate.
I shall deal with the question of overseas donations, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting, a little later when I have dealt with clause 1.
Lady Olga Maitland:
Answer my question.
Mr. Spellar:
It is unfortunate that, in spite of much repetition--I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have become slightly bored by it--the basis of the Bill has still not got across to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam.
Lady Olga Maitland:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order, when I put a question to the hon. Member for Warley, West (Mr. Spellar), for him to dodge it?
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. That is not a point of order and the hon. Lady knew that full well before she raised it. I will deal with genuine points of order. Points of order that are not genuine--they are common in this place--should not be raised and hon. Members should not test the Chair's patience by repeatedly doing so.
Mr. Spellar:
Clause 1 would require political parties to publish accounts. That requirement is so unremarkable that as far as back as December 1949 the House passed a resolution that
Unfortunately, although there have been some minor improvements from the Conservative party, it has not seen fit to implement that resolution.
I referred earlier to the charter movement in the Conservative party. Concern at the failure to implement the resolution is not confined to Opposition Members. Conservative Members will be aware of the charter movement in the Conservative party, which has argued, on a broader front, for a formal party constitution. Extraordinarily, the main defence of the Tory party a few
years ago, in a case involving the Inland Revenue, was that the party did not exist at all. The Conservative charter movement wants proper accounts and, it says,
That seems unremarkable, but to the mandarins of the Conservative party it is fearsomely democratic. Conservative party members need real accountability.
The charter movement posed some interesting questions to the former party chairman, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler). It asked:
Both the charter movement and the public want to know whether the funds held in this country are the only funds under the control of the Conservative party or whether there are funds in Jersey and elsewhere--
Mr. Jenkin:
It is no secret that the Conservative party has a whacking great overdraft, let alone funds in Jersey or anywhere else.
Mr. Spellar:
It is certainly no secret that at that time the Conservative party had a £17 million overdraft. That begs the question why the Royal Bank of Scotland so easily allowed an overdraft of that size to build up with no immediate way of its being repaid. Again, transparency would enable the Conservative party to dispel the argument that the overdraft was carried by the bank because it had an assurance of other sources of funds being held in reserve elsewhere. That may or may not be true, but if the Conservative party were open about its accounts it could confirm or deny that impression.
The charter movement asked:
My hon. Friend the Member for Tooting mentioned that matter and I shall return to it later. The charter movement also asked:
It then asked questions about loans and borrowings.
All those are extremely important questions both for members of the Conservative party and for the electorate. It is worth noting that recommendations on the publication of funds were included in the report of the Home Affairs Select Committee in 1994. It was not a particularly good report; it covered up a number of matters. However, on the publication of funds it was clear and unequivocal. It said:
That is fairly straightforward and of interest to hon. Members, the public and members of the Conservative party.
"political parties, and all other organisations having political action as one of their aims, should publish annually full and adequate statements of their accounts."
"full control over the party's money must be exercised by the elected officers who must be accountable to the membership."
"Why has there been a consistent refusal to publish a balance sheet? If we are incorrect in our estimate of the balance sheet position at 31st March 1992, what other funds are there directly or indirectly controlled by the party which covered in whole or in part the deficit of £17 million and where are they located?"
"What were the sources of the said £7 million received from abroad in 1991-92?"
"From how many sources were individual sums in excess of £1 million received in those years?"
"We believe that every party should make published accounts available to all those who request them."
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