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3 Mar 2010 : Column 296WH—continued
"Unfortunately, that was unthinkable to large swathes"
of the Labour party. Those are not my conclusions, but the conclusions of Peter Watt, the then Labour general secretary, who like me participated in every one of the talks. He went on to say that the current Prime Minister had
"nothing to gain from picking this fight"
"He needed the support of the trade unions to become Prime Minister",
so we know why he engaged in so much obstructionism as well. Peter Watt continues that he
"disliked the extent to which we had to dance to the unions' tune"
"the trade union barons were never shy of articulating what they expected in return"
"My primary emotion during the process was intense frustration, because my own party was the biggest block to reform".
The heart of the matter is that the communications allowance was introduced with party political purposes in mind, whatever its outward name and whatever the pretence of the way it was described. Labour was the incumbent party. Anything that went only to incumbents would inevitably be of benefit to it. It has been rumbled, first by the way that Parliament has begun to examine these issues, and now by the fact that in this debate the right hon. Member for Streatham has let the cat out of the bag about the real purposes of supporting the communications allowance. I am delighted by the findings of Sir Christopher Kelly on the issue. I am very pleased that my party supports the removal of the communications allowance, and I hope that it will be implemented immediately after the election by IPSA.
Frank Cook (in the Chair): Order. I am happy to inform the House that the three main Front-Bench spokespeople have agreed to reduce their allotted time from 10 to seven minutes-not easy, but they are prepared to do it-to afford Back Benchers more time. So I appeal to everyone: I will try to get you all in, but make it brief, please, make it pointed and make it clear.
3.26 pm
Martin Salter (Reading, West) (Lab): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), who made an intelligent contribution to the debate. I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Keith Hill) and my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) make a fundamental mistake in equating the communications allowance to the tsunami of funds being hurled at their constituencies.
It is time I fessed up: hon. Members are looking at the father of the communications allowance. I pushed it in 2002 and 2003 and it first emerged, not through Puttnam, but through the "Connecting Parliament with the Public" report of the Modernisation Committee in 2003-04, and not as a balance to what was at that time an all-but bankrupt Conservative party. If we cast our minds back to the hammering that the Conservatives got in the polls in 2001, we see that they were not a well funded political party. My objective was to create a level playing field not against party political campaigning, because that is clearly outlawed in the rules that govern the communications allowance-I am surprised that my colleagues allowed themselves to be dragged down that road-but with others active in our constituencies, such as local councillors, whether Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem or independent. They can proactively communicate with their constituents and put out unsolicited letters seeking views on planning applications and all sorts of other issues. We cannot. How insane is that?
I leave this place with huge affection for the role that we undertake as Members of Parliament. The action in my constituency of which I am proudest is not when I went with the grain of public opinion, but when I went
against it and campaigned for a new psychiatric hospital in the heart of my constituency and stood up for the mentally ill, who did not have a voice and were not a well funded middle-class residents group saying, "Oh, my God, we can't have these characters running around frightening the children." Things have settled down, and I am proud that I was able to do that. I could do it because I could communicate proactively. That is what the allowance is about. It is nothing to do with Ashcroft or the bankrupt Tory party, or a Tory party whose coffers are overflowing from tax exiles or others. Let me make that clear.
Martin Linton: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Martin Salter: No, I want to be very brief.
The communications allowance was brought in-no one has mentioned this-on the back of the cap on MPs' postage, which was implemented and introduced by the previous Speaker, because some Members of Parliament were taking the mickey with the House of Commons free post. I have always been a high user of it, but I think very much as the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink), who is not in his place, does-or the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), among the Conservatives. He had a huge issue in his constituency-the closure of Ashford hospital, I think. How could he deal with receiving a petition of perhaps 15,000-I do not know how many people wrote to him-on the subject? Within the rules, because he was reacting to what people wrote to him about, he was able to reply to them and keep them informed and engaged in that campaign to keep Ashford hospital open. He was successful, but because of abuse by one or two Members, we were taking away the tools to do the job, so something had to be put in its place.
Before Opposition Members get too aerated about the issue, I point out that only one of them has not claimed the allowance. It was not fought tooth and nail by the Conservative party. I was there and I know. A lot of the points in favour of the introduction of the communications allowance were conceded by the Conservatives. In the debate in 2007, when Parliament eventually got around to introducing the communications allowance, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands) said in response to me:
"The hon. Gentleman is speaking of allowing MPs to engage in reactive communication with constituents, which I am in favour of."-[Official Report, 28 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 1530.]
The problem is that the ability to engage in reactive communication with our constituents was hidebound by the cap on MPs' postage. We had to have something to put in its place.
Mr. Hands: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I reject Sir Christopher Kelly's analysis. I wrote to the Members Estimate Committee to pull apart his arguments. In paragraph 8.6 of his report, he acknowledged that the communications allowance was introduced in part to compensate for the cap on postage, but he made no recommendation that the cap be lifted. He stated that
"some MPs of all three main parties make use of it."
What he did not mention was that only 43 MPs have not claimed the communications allowance.
There is a degree of hypocrisy, is there not, in the Leader of the Opposition calling the allowance
"nothing less than old-fashioned, state-sanctioned propaganda"?
I have listened to the protestations of the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart), who tells us that it is corrupt. Well, he was quite happy to claim £4,679 of corrupt money. The hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham says that he had no choice but to claim it.
Martin Salter: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in two seconds. Perhaps he had to take that money to fund a website, but I would like to see the kind of website one can get for £5,351, which was what he claimed in 2007-08. Is he telling the House that he spent that money on a website and nothing else? I would like him to clarify.
Mr. Hands: I am happy to clarify. My point was that one has no choice about something like a website. In 2007, I made the point that it was not right because of the postage cap to introduce a communications allowance of up to £10,000 for every Member, which clearly gave encouragement to use that amount. That is different from the one-off occasion when one has a mass petition, which the hon. Gentleman was describing, because that will not be the case for all 646 Members.
Martin Salter: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that non-clarification, but I note that he did not clarify whether he spent all of the £5,000 on his website.
To conclude, it will be a sad day if at the end of this Parliament-a Parliament whose reputation has been traduced by a sloppy expenses system and sloppy behaviour on our part collectively-we single out the one allowance about which there was no controversy in The Daily Telegraph or on the stolen disc. The allowance probably worked-albeit perhaps imperfectly-far more effectively than our second home allowance, our employment of relations, and the ridiculous fripperies and luxuries that people decided the taxpayer should fork out for. It is a shame, when politics and the role of Members of Parliament are being traduced, that we do not have the simple tools to do what we are sent here to do, which is to speak up for the communities that represent us. Not giving us the tools to do that is ridiculous.
I end with a quote from a Conservative, Lord Norton of Louth, who gave evidence to the Modernisation Committee and whom the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness described in the House as a great man. He said:
"If the constituency demand increases-which it has, decade by decade-if you cannot close off the demand, you have to manage the supply side...There is also a resource implication."
There is a resource implication. We will not serve our constituents as well as we could if we are not given the tools to do the job or the resources to fund proper, non-partisan communication.
Frank Cook (in the Chair): There are only five minutes remaining.
3.34 pm
Mr. Brian Binley (Northampton, South) (Con): I will make two quick and simple points, but first I congratulate the right hon. Member for Streatham (Keith Hill) on initiating the debate. I add my comments on his friendliness. I have always considered him a friendly chap and now consider him a friend. I therefore have some sympathy with what he says.
Frank Cook (in the Chair): Communications allowance.
Mr. Binley: Of course, I shall come straight to the communications allowance.
I agree with the remarks of the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) on spending prior to the election. To my mind, as an old-time agent, the figures that have been mentioned are quite obscene. They do have a distorting impact on elections. It was foolish to enact the law that allowed such sums to be spent, and I thought so at the time. The figures we see today confirm that my judgment then was correct.
All I can say is, why the hell did Labour bring that law in? I did not understand that for one minute. It was never going to benefit Labour, even if it was introduced from a political perspective. It was absolutely crazy. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but want to introduce a bit of balance about where the law came from.
Receiving so many leaflets would put me off. In some respects, it does harm to put such nonsense through people's letterboxes week in, week out; month in, month out. I know that I am doing harm to our worthy candidate in that part of the world, but quite frankly I get totally pissed off with it. Sorry, Mr. Cook, I withdraw that remark.
Frank Cook (in the Chair): Thank you.
Mr. Binley: Finally, non-doms have been mentioned and they do have an impact on this matter. Between 2001 and 2008, the Labour party received more donations from non-doms than any other party. The amount was £8.9 million, compared with the £5.6 million that the Conservatives received. A little understanding of the balance in this matter has some import in the debate. That is all I wish to say to provide a little fairness. Thank you for calling me, Mr. Cook.
Frank Cook (in the Chair): There are two minutes remaining. I call Martin Linton.
3.37 pm
Martin Linton (Battersea) (Lab): It is important to distinguish two issues in the debate. The first is the tsunami of party propaganda that has flooded through people's letterboxes. That is relevant because it is the justification that Lord Ashcroft himself gave for opposing the communications allowance. A completely separate issue is the right of MPs to report back to their constituencies. I am much more exercised about the second point. We must warn the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to think the issue through before it takes action.
When we spend money through the communications allowance, we cannot mention the party, but can only describe what an MP has done. The opposition does not
come from my local Conservative candidate's leaflets, much as they flood through the letterbox. I am trying to counteract the effects of the council newspaper, which has a staff of six, including graphic designers and former journalists. It uses its 30 or 40 pages every two months to claim credit not only for what the council does, but for what the Government do. For example, the new lifts at Clapham Junction station were funded by £10 million from the Government and the council threw in £300,000 for pavement improvements. In other words, 97 per cent. of the funding came from the Government and 3 per cent. from Wandsworth council. Of course, the council newspaper gave huge publicity to the £300,000 it spent on the pavements and none to the Government.
In contrast to the 30 or 40-page bi-monthly council newspaper, I have a bi-monthly newsletter called "the Bugle", which stretches to two pages. It is important that MPs are able to draw their constituents' attention to what they are fighting for and what the Government are doing in their constituencies. Thanks to the communications allowance, I have been able to tell people things that they cannot learn about anywhere else, such as the five health centres that are planned in the constituency, the tube link to Clapham Junction and my opposition to 42-storey tower blocks at Clapham Junction. People regard that newsletter not as propaganda, but as an important source of information that they cannot get from any other place-[Interruption.] No, I will not give way. I have two minutes. I am sorry, but I am not going to give any of that time away.
It is very important to preserve the ability of MPs to report back what they are doing in the constituency. The argument about party propaganda is totally irrelevant. The position should not be characterised as party propaganda versus straight news in newspapers. The newsletters I put out are people's source of information about local issues. Newspapers, such as the Evening Standard and so on, have a relentlessly negative spin on politics. MPs' newsletters-mine has never been complained against-can perform a very valuable role.
Frank Cook (in the Chair): Six minutes, David Heath.
3.40 pm
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): I am glad the extra time the hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) took came out of my allocation, Mr. Cook. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Streatham (Keith Hill) on securing the debate. I have to say that it has been extremely muddled, because, as the hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) said, two entirely different topics have been discussed.
One issue is party funding and the hugely adverse effect the lack of limits on party funding has on the election contests in marginal constituencies across the country. That was amply demonstrated by the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) and, it would appear, by the right hon. Member for Streatham, although that is the only constituency I have ever heard of where the Liberal Democrats are outspending the other parties. I am delighted to know that there is at least one constituency in which we have some assets. I draw hon. Members' attention to the comment on "The News Quiz" last week that the Conservatives are funded by multi-millionaire businessmen, the Labour party by the unions and the Liberal Democrats by a bring-and-buy sale in Truro. That is actually largely the case.
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