Mr.
Wills: Will the hon. Gentleman give
way?
Mr.
Tyrie: I will in a moment. I hope that I have worded that
in a way that does not open up a debate that I not only suspect would
be out of
order—
Mr.
Tyrie: —but would also be an unnecessary party
political exchange of a type that I would like to avoid. None the less,
even though we have had such a stricture in an unusual but powerful
ruling from a sedentary position, I shall give way to the
Minister.
Mr.
Wills: I was only seeking illumination from the hon.
Gentleman. Could he remind the Committee of what happened to the Hayden
Phillips talks and which party withdrew from
them?
The
Chairman: The answer to that would be completely out of
order. I am sorry, I do not often disagree with Ministers in Committee,
but I do on this occasion. The hon. Member for Chichester should not
deal with the
question.
Mr.
Tyrie: And I shall not—not even by the back
door.
The
Chairman: You will probably
try.
Mr.
Tyrie: I shall not try to, even by the back
door. I
want to make one last point. There is the question of the effect on the
scope of the criteria for ennoblement, which the hon. Member for
Cambridge touched upon near the end of his contributions. It is true
that a significant number of donors has as an incentive the idea that
such preferment might come upon them one day. There are some pretty
good statistics to back up that view. The hon. Gentleman mentioned one
about donations in excess of £1 million to the Labour party over
the past 11 years. He might have tried looking below £1 million,
because the going rate is certainly well below £1 million at the
moment—or it was, until the Lord Levy scandal broke.
I want to make
only one more point about achieving that part of the objective. I am
not sure that new clause 22, or even a hyper-improved version
of it, is the way forward. The appointment to a peerage and the sense
in which it is an honour need to be completely separate. A peerage
should be granted entirely on the likelihood of that person making a
contribution to the legislature, whether that is an appointment or,
ultimately, an election—I shall not go into that. The position
is part of the legislature and it should be treated as an appointment
to the legislature, in which we want contributions from that
individual, rather than thinking of the peerage as an honour. It should
certainly not form part of patronage of any type, even of a Prime
Minister. When
I wrote my proposals for reform of party funding, the Leader of the
Opposition wrote the foreword and launched them at a press conference,
giving warm support. For those interested, although the proposals
obtained little coverage due to other issues, on page 6 the hon.
Gentleman will find the solution to the problem of new clause 22 set
out in detail. My right hon. Friend believes that the link between
patronage and the Prime Minister should be completely broken and that
those appointments should be made by an independent appointments
commission.
My very last
point is that the issue will not go away, even if we deal with it
before the election, which is extremely unlikely. It will probably come
up after the election, whoever wins. I will do whatever I can to ensure
that it comes up after the election if the Conservative party wins.
This area needs fundamental reform; not along the lines of new clause
22, which would have all sorts of unforeseen and unforeseeable
consequences, as the hon. Gentleman admits. We have to have reform, if
we are to remove what I described earlier as the stench in the nostrils
of the
electorate. 3
pm
Tony
Lloyd: I commend new clause 22, although not every aspect
is unproblematic. For example, removing Members of the House of Lords,
which would be an unintended consequence of new clause 22, should not
be part of our duties, but the spirit of the clause is right. The hon.
Member for Chichester was a little harsh about the motivation behind
it. The new clause serves a genuine purpose and there is a need to
debate those devices. We can disagree about the mechanisms that ought
to be allowed in our political system and the funding thereof, but we
ought not to disagree about devices designed to get round clear
principles that have already been established
elsewhere. One
clear principle, which exists for direct donors, is that overseas
residents—those prohibited from taking part in our domestic
political processes—should be disbarred from funding. That is
the essential import of the new clause, and, in that sense, we ought to
seek something that does that. We ought to ensure that the law for
corporate structures is in line with the law affecting individuals. It
may not be the right mechanism, but I hope that my right hon. Friend
the Minister will at least see the logic of moving in the direction
that the hon. Member for Cambridge is
urging.
Mr.
Wills: Like most members of the Committee, we agree with
the high-minded principles that we discern behind the amendment and new
clause 22. However, as
has already been revealed in the discussions, the new clause is,
perhaps, too imperfectly drafted to secure the ends that it
seeks.
Section 54(8)
of the 2000 Act makes it clear that an individual on any of the
following registers is entitled to donate to a UK political party: the
register of parliamentary electors; the register of local government
electors; the register of relevant citizens of the EU; and the register
of peers made under regulations under section 3 of the Representation
of the People Act 1985. The amendment would change that so that only
those on the parliamentary register would be able to donate, which
would prevent UK citizens living abroad and EU citizens living in the
UK from donating. We do not think that a limitation of that sort is
desirable, given that those categories of person have a right to vote
and otherwise participate in our political system.
As we have
heard, the new clause would also prevent peers from donating. Of
course, it is right, in our and in most people’s view, that
peers may not vote for representatives in the House of Commons, but it
is not right that they should be barred from participating in the
democratic process in other respects. In any event, as I have
mentioned, the future reform of the House of Lords, to which everyone
is committed, would make such a change inevitably anachronistic if we
introduced democratically elected peers, either in whole or substantial
part.
The amendment
would further prevent companies owned by such individuals—that
is, peers and individuals with foreign connections—from being
able to donate. That would be a significant departure from the
2000 Act, under which all companies that are registered and
carry on business in the UK are eligible to donate. We all understand
the concerns that lie behind the amendments. It is equally clear,
however, that they need to be addressed in some other context and not
through the wholesale amendment of the 2000 Act to prevent any company
with significant foreign connections or any company owned or controlled
by a peer from being able to donate. As currently drafted, the
amendments would prevent a significant number of individuals and
companies with genuine connections to the United Kingdom from being
able to donate, and that is not an effect that we want to
achieve.
However, as
the hon. Member for Cambridge made clear, and as my hon. Friend the
Member for Manchester, Central and the hon. Member for Chichester said,
these are important issues. The purpose of the amendment is perhaps to
open up discussions on how we can come to some kind of final resolution
of these complex but fundamentally important issues on party funding
and spending. I think we can all agree that the discussion is not
finished, but as I have said over and again in Committee, and as my
right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State said on Second Reading, we
believe that we can move towards such a final resolution only on the
basis of consensus. Such important issues cannot be dealt with in any
other way and certainly should not be turned into a party political
football. That is why I share the regret of the hon. Member for
Chichester that the Conservative party walked away from the
discussions.
Mr.
Tyrie: Will the Minister give
way?
Mr.
Wills: I am just concluding my
remarks.
Mr.
Tyrie: Will the Minister give
way?
The
Chairman: Order. The Minister is not giving way.
Mr.
Wills: I hope that one day we will see consensus emerge on
what we all agree are important issues. I think that all members of the
Committee will wish to return to the subject in due course, but I do
not believe that the amendment and the proposed new clause provide the
place to do that. Having heard the debate from both sides, I hope that
the hon. Member for Cambridge will withdraw the
amendment.
David
Howarth: The Minister came back to the point about
consensus, but he seems to have a highly restricted view of where we
should be going and how. There are times when politicians have to go
with the consensus of the public, rather than the consensus of the
parties. His final remarks illustrated that there is not even consensus
among the parties on why the previous talks broke down, never mind on
what to do about it. The public expect us to act, and to do so in a way
that they see as fair, not partisan. The Government are in a position
to make proposals that will be perceived as fair by the public as a
whole. It is interesting that amendments have been tabled by Labour
Back Benchers that would have had an adverse effect on the Labour
party, but which they tabled anyway. That is the spirit in which the
debate should continue.
Mr.
Wills: Of course we must move forward in the way that the
public want—that is what we all are here to do. I hope that the
hon. Gentleman recognises, however, that if we cannot secure consensus
among the parties it will become a partisan issue, axiomatically so. It
will become very difficult to secure an enduring settlement. The public
certainly do not want it to become a party political football or for it
to be batted around between elections. We saw that at the beginning of
the 20th century; it is not helpful to the processes of democracy. That
is not an excuse for kicking the matter into the long grass and I hope
that the hon. Gentleman will accept that. It is a duty of all hon.
Members to try to achieve consensus, so that we can do precisely what
the people of this country want us to do.
David
Howarth: I am happy that the Minister has just said that
it is a not a matter of kicking the issue into the long grass, but he
is not right about the conditions under which we can get a permanent
settlement. It is not necessary to have agreement among the parties to
reach a position that will be stable. We need to reach a position that
the public think is fair and when an attempt to move away from it would
be seen as partisan and would lose support for the party that proposed
it. That is what I am asking for on not only the issues raised under
new clause 22, but donations, expenditure caps and relations between
the unions and the Labour party. The possible solution that has been
suggested would enable us to reach the point at which we could propose
a settlement that the public, not the parties, would
want.
Mr.
Tyrie: I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. 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?
David
Howarth: I agree with that. What matters is whether the
public would perceive as fair a system with which one party did not
agree. If the other parties ganged up on a particular party just to do
it down, the public would not consider that to be fair. It would not be
a stable position. I am not suggesting that. We should all think about
what would be a fair settlement and go for it, regardless of whether
one or two of us might object on partisan grounds to the eventual fair
solution. Having
heard the debate on new clause 22, I readily confess that it could do
with some more work. As the Minister said, a number of groups are
excluded from parliamentary elections, some of which I certainly would
want to exclude from the right to donate, including peers. I would be a
bit more doubtful about others, such as European Union electors who are
not peers in this country. An interesting question was asked about
whether we should allow United Kingdom citizens abroad, some of whom
are not peers strangely enough, to be
donors. I
want to mention prisoners, the issue raised by the hon. Member for
Huntingdon. At the moment, they are not allowed to vote. A European
Court of Human Rights judgment is against the Government on that point.
The problem can be resolved in several ways, but not by granting the
right to vote to all prisoners. Taking away the right to vote should be
considered to be a specific part of a sentence, because the right to
citizenship and the rights of citizenship should be considered
separately from other aspects of what happens to someone. That is the
correct approach, because being a citizen with the right to vote should
be considered an important
matter. Even
though I recognise the problems in how new clause 22 has been drafted,
I am encouraged by the remarks made by the hon. Member for Manchester,
Central about the acceptance of the spirit behind it, especially behind
proposed subsections (2) and (3) on anti-avoidance. It is the constant
task of legislators to look out for ways in which what they intend is
being got round in the world outside. That is why legislation cannot be
for ever. When rules that are laid down are being avoided by devices
that undermine their spirit and intention, we should do something about
it. With that in mind, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Clause
9 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
10Election
expenses incurred for person not yet a
Candidate 3.15
pm
Martin
Linton: I beg to move amendment No. 201, in
clause 10, page 8, line 29, leave
out subsection (2)(b) and
insert— ‘(b) for
“after the date when he becomes a candidate at the
election” there is substituted “after the 50th month
following the month of the previous general
election”’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment No. 202, in
clause 10, page 9, line 2, at
end add—
‘(6) In the 1983 Act section 76 (Limitation
of election expenses) is amended as
follows. (7) In subsection
2(a)— (a) in paragraph
(i), after “electors” there is inserted “in the
period between the end of the 50th month following the month of the
previous general election and the dissolution of Parliament, plus the
same amount between the date of the dissolution of Parliament and the
date of the general
election”; (b) in
paragraph (ii), after “electors” there is inserted
“in the period between the end of the 50th month following the
month of the previous general election and the dissolution of
Parliament, plus the same amount between the date of the dissolution of
Parliament and the date of the general
election.”’. Martin
Linton: We come now to triggering, which for many of us is
the most important issue in the Bill. I am conscious that we have very
little time left so I shall not take an unfair share of it. It is
important to set out the issues. I have been dedicated for a long time
to the notion that if the Bill achieves nothing else, it should close
the loophole unintentionally created in the 2000
Act—on which Committee I also served—which leaves
completely unrestricted spending by candidates up until the date of
dissolution.
Triggering—in
other words, control of candidates’ spending—was in force
for 17 years before that, since the 1983 Act and, as far as I know,
since the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883. For most
of our history we have had control of candidates’ spending. It
was dropped only by mistake in the 2000 Act. I have looked up the
historic debate in the House of Lords where that occurred. Amendment
No. 253G was the first time in the discussion of that Bill that it was
proposed to introduce the
words “a)
on the date of—
(i) the
dissolution of Parliament,”—[Official Report, House of
Lords, 24 October 2000; Vol. 618, c.
227.] That
was just a few weeks before the Bill received Royal Assent, long after
it had left the House of Commons and long after the Committee stage.
The phrase had never been mentioned and there had been no intention or
discussion to remove the trigger during the course of that Bill. Then
on 24 October that amendment appeared in the House of Lords. It was
opposed by the Conservative Front Bencher Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish,
who sought to delete the words
“on the date of
dissolution”.
Sadly, the deletion was
opposed by the Government Front Bencher at that time, Lord Bach, who
said: “If
he withdraws his amendments, I promise to look at the point that he has
raised.”—[Official Report, House of
Lords, 24 October 2000; Vol. 618, c.
229.] That is
a phrase we often hear in Committee and on Report. I have implicit
trust in the Minister that when he has said to me that he promises to
look at the points that I raised on a number of amendments, he will be
as good as his
word.
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