| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Walter: My right hon. and learned Friend is correct. These powers can be used not only for political expediency, but in a partisan way by a political party that wants to aid and abet its friends in the north of Ireland.
Mr. Bercow: My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) has just raised a serious point. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is incumbent on the House to have serious regard to the possibility not only of a future abuse occurring under a future Secretary of State, but of an abuse by the present incumbent of the office, who, for all his distinctive talents, is a distinctly manipulative specimen?
Mr. Walter: We can only presume from the fact that the Government have included clause 63 that, when drafting the Bill, they speculated about the possibility that they would want to use it and to make an exemption for a particular Northern Ireland party--or, possibly, a number of Northern Ireland parties--allowing that party, or those parties, to receive funds from foreign sources that are denied to the rest of the United Kingdom.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Walter: I will give way for the last time to the Minister.
Mr. O'Brien: In fact, the hon. Gentleman has not given way before this occasion, but I am grateful to him for doing so.
Our amendment No. 24 will ensure that any order under clause 63 applies to all Northern Ireland parties. It will not be possible to specify particular parties.
Mr. Hogg:
That is not in the Bill.
Mr. O'Brien:
We tabled the amendment in response to concerns expressed in Committee.
I hope that what I have said reassures the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) that such mendacious thoughts are not in our minds.
Mr. Walter:
I am cognisant of the amendment, but as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham pointed out, the provision is not yet in the Bill. Moreover, I fear that if the clause were altered to refer to "each" rather than "a" Northern Ireland party, as the amendment suggests, another can of worms would be opened in connection with political parties engaging in activities not only in Northern Ireland but in other parts of the United Kingdom. We shall, in the context of other parts of the Bill, discuss problems that could arise in regard to parties that might have sister organisations in different parts of the United Kingdom. I think that deleting clause 63, as amendment No. 152 suggests, is the simplest and most straightforward way of dealing with the matter.
Let me return to the Neill report, and the White Paper that constitutes the Government's response to it. I want--without prejudging anything that Northern Ireland Members may say later--to quote the Unionist parties' response to the White Paper. They adopted a more or less unanimous view:
We do not want the Secretary of State to have the power to make orders that relate only to Northern Ireland, to one Northern Ireland party, to several Northern Ireland parties, or to all the Northern Ireland parties. It might have been politically expedient for the Government to suggest that Sinn Fein--the party that immediately comes to mind--should be exempt from various provisions or regulations that apply to other parties: but it should not. We cannot have one rule for one party, or group of parties, because it is politically expedient, and another rule for other parties. The basic premise behind the amendment is that the same rules must apply to all parties in Northern Ireland as apply to all parties in the rest of the UK.
Mr. Martin Linton (Battersea):
I look forward to hearing what Ministers can report about the discussions that have been going on with parties in Northern Ireland. As they know, my amendment, No. 164, is concerned not so much with the Republic of Ireland as with the possibility that the clause could be used to enable donations from other countries to find their way to this country.
My concern lies not so much with clause 63 as with clause 54, which makes it an offence to give false information; indeed, it is punishable by a year in jail. However, it is only an offence for a UK citizen. Even if it is committed by a UK citizen, it can be investigated only if it is committed in this country.
A London banker who gives, shall we say, £5 million to a Euro-federalist party could be investigated under clause 54 to see whether the money had really come
from him, but a Dublin banker who gives £5 million to Sinn Fein, or, indeed, to the Ulster Unionist Council would not be breaking an Irish law and would not be subject to British law. Because, presumably, those offences would not be covered by Interpol, people will not be extraditable for party funding fraud.
I come back to the simple proposition: we can ban foreign funding, one of the fundamental purposes of the Bill, only from people who are subject to British law. As it stands, the Bill creates a new type of permissible donor, who is beyond its reach because he or she is an Irish citizen living in the Republic of Ireland. That opens the way to what has been described as re-routing, where money can go from, for example, an American citizen to an Irish citizen, from an Irish citizen to a Northern Ireland political party and, indeed, from a Northern Ireland political party to a British political party. Perhaps the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland can prevail on the Taoiseach to introduce a Bill as part of the peace process banning Irish citizens from acting as conduits for donors to UK parties.
I understand that the talks with the Northern Ireland parties may touch on those possibilities, but there has to be some fire-break--I believe that discussions have taken place on the matter--between Belfast and London parties, so that money cannot pass between them. I look forward to hearing how those particular problems can be addressed.
What if the same party qualifies as both a Northern Ireland party and a British party? Conservative Members have not mentioned that possible self-interest in the clause. In recent years, the only party in the House that comes remotely close to being simultaneously a British and a Northern Ireland party has been the Conservative party.
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield):
In view of our amendment No. 152, I fail entirely to see where in the clause self-interest lies for Conservative Members. We wish funding of the Conservative party in Northern Ireland to be subject to exactly the same stringencies as those faced by the Conservative party anywhere else. Nevertheless, I should be grateful for the hon. Gentleman's views on the matter. It does not seem to me right in principle that--should we choose to do so, and if it is done legitimately and in accordance with the rules that the hon. Gentleman himself wants to be implemented--money should not pass between the Conservative party in Northern Ireland and the Conservative party in the rest of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Linton:
I do not suggest that Conservative Members have a self-interest in amendment No. 152, but only that their interest as a party could be affected by the Bill's current provisions. Like Conservative Members, I am trying to ensure that, in creating special exemptions for citizens of the Republic of Ireland--whatever they may think of that--we do not inadvertently affect the efficacy of the rules against overseas funding and of the enforcement of those rules as provided for in the Bill. If a Northern Ireland party gives money to a person who subsequently gives it to a British political party, it might not be in breach of the legislation.
It is not acceptable to argue that Northern Ireland must be treated differently because Sinn Fein are organised on an all-island basis. The same law should apply to all parties which stand for election in the United Kingdom. This should not be dismissed as a political point. The fact that it is difficult to police donations to the Republican Movement is no excuse for not trying.
It is donations to the republican movement with which we are concerned here, and cutting off the flow of funds to that movement should be at the forefront of our minds when we consider clause 63.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |