Lord Balfe
Main Page: Lord Balfe (Conservative - Life peer)Trade Union Political Funds and Political Party Funding
Lord Balfe Excerpts
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, on his excellent report. I begin by reminding the House that we have this report because of the great unease in the House about the proposition put forward. I say further to my Front Bench that it is highly likely that if the noble Lord tabled an amendment based on the findings of his report, it would be carried—
Lord Balfe
Okay, then it will be carried. I would therefore hope that the Government will devote a good proportion of their thinking power to working out where the acceptable compromise is between where they are and where the majority of the House will be, because I predict that the amendment will be carried.
Paragraph 61, which has not been mentioned, states that after 1927, unions raised the amount that they paid into political funds. That is a far more significant paragraph than has been realised. We have seen this with the political fund ballots. I remind the House that when the Conservative Government proposed political fund ballots, they thought that that would end political funds. Not only has it not: there are more political funds today in more unions than there have ever been. We should not underestimate the power of marketing. Also, if people look forward, they may say, “We may need a political fund to carry out certain functions”.
I am not saying that we should therefore support the clause, but that the law of unintended consequences may well come home to roost. This will not find much favour on the Opposition Benches either. We talk about political funds, but not about giving people any choice within them. There is no proposal to tick a box so that the money can go to the Green Party or the 30% who vote for the Conservative Party. It is a straightforward sledgehammer approach, in the probably mistaken belief that it will somehow break the union political funds.
I notice that the proportion going to the Labour Party is about four-ninths of the amount collected so, for the last time, we can use an old Liberal slogan of ninepence for fourpence: you collect ninepence and you give fourpence to the Labour Party. That was how Lloyd George sold national insurance—for those who are not in the Liberal party.
In paragraph 107, the committee states, “We endorse”. There are no minorities there. The Certification Officer needs a balance between proportionality and accountability. That is clearly evident, because it seems that things are being pushed on to the Certification Officer without thought being given to how he is going to carry out his functions. We need to think very carefully about what his role is. Is it just to receive the report? If you say, “Dear Certification Officer, we have spent £50,000 on Build a Better Society, a front organisation that will organise demonstrations at the Conservative Party conference”, you have fulfilled all that you have asked the Certification Officer to do. He takes that and puts a stamp on it and says, “Oh, yes, they’ve declared that—it’s jolly good, isn’t it?”. End of story. What are we trying to do with this Bill?
On the subject of funding reform, paragraph 115 has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Oates. We do not want to get into a unilateral tit-for-tat action; it is not going to do any of us any good. Paragraph 128 cites Sir Christopher Kelly, who is not normally found in the Jeremy Corbyn part of politics, but he called Clause 10,
“a partisan, cynical move that is likely … to bring the whole process into even greater disrepute”.
I think we need to take note of what he had to say.
In conclusion, I hope that we will agree with paragraph 141(a), giving the new members time to opt in, and I hope that we will find a way of coming to terms with paragraph 142(a), which reflects the majority feeling of the committee and what is likely to be the majority feeling of this House. The benefit of this debate is that the Government can think their way out of the problems they have unfortunately got themselves into. I am sure that all noble Lords will be happy to help them to solve this particular, rather difficult problem.
Lord Lupton (Con)
My Lords, I declare my various interests in this debate: first, and somewhat posthumously, as the voluntary national treasurer of the Conservative Party until last month; secondly, as a continuing board member of the Conservative Party; thirdly, as a very willing and voluntary donor—past, present and no doubt future—to the Conservative Party. And that goes to the nub of the issue concerning Clause 10, which is not to do with the funding of political parties, despite the Opposition’s attempts to obfuscate their position by claiming that it is. In my view, this clause is all to do with the principle that donations to political parties should be made with active intent, with a willingness and a desire to donate your money to a particular political party. This is, in the Conservative Party at least, a matter of transparency, personal choice and active intent.
As my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley reminded us earlier, many years ago, in 2001, the rules about public limited company donations to political parties changed so that the prior consent of shareholders in general meeting was required. Such a rule affected the Conservatives the most, but it became accepted, even though previously the decision had been left to the discretion of a board of directors appointed by those shareholders in general meeting. Although it may not satisfy my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s point of principle, I thought that the numbers would at least inform that particular debate. According to Electoral Commission figures, since the rules changed in 2001, total donations—that is, the aggregate sum of all donations from all public limited companies, including the unlisted ones, which comprise most of those plcs—come to only £7.4 million in those 15 years, of which £4.4 million went to the Conservative Party and £3 million went to other parties. To put that in context—and the number has been declining over those years—that is under 2% of the average annual spending and funding of the political parties. It is a small sum.
The inappropriateness of the current opt-out practice was vividly demonstrated to me by one of my daughters in the usual lively debate over dinner about politics. I am, I mainly think, blessed with four quite brilliant adult children who have been raised to be fiercely independent in thinking, with the result that I think none of them votes for my party—although I live in hope. One of my daughters, who consented to me telling this tale, is in her third year as a fully qualified teacher in an academy school, having completed the remarkable and fantastic Teach First programme. In her first year she joined the NASUWT, which describes itself on its website as “The Teachers’ Union”. She joined mainly, I think, because it was free in the first year but also, I recall, because it offered litigation insurance for teachers. She was very surprised to hear, over our dinner table, that had she been paying union dues some of her money could have been diverted—horror of horrors—to my political party, or indeed to the Labour Party. She did not appreciate that she would have had to opt out of such a donation to prevent that.
Lord Balfe
I point out, if I may, that the NASUWT is not affiliated to the Labour Party.
Lord Lupton
It is not affiliated, but it has donated to the Labour Party according to statistics from the Electoral Commission.
My daughter was graceful enough to acknowledge that at least donations to the Conservatives are all—every one—an act of intentional benevolence.
I remind your Lordships that Clause 10, as the report states, is in effect moving us to the Northern Ireland system of opt-in, which unions, including UK unions, have offered to their Northern Ireland members since 1927.
It is quite wrong that trade unions should be allowed to bury an opt-out in the small print. Clause 10 is quite right to require a mens rea, an intent, to donate through the opt-in mechanism. The Select Committee agreed in its excellent report that all union members should be required to opt in eventually, even if there was disagreement about when and how existing members should be treated. Even if there is scope—and I hope there is—for listening to requests for extending the transitional arrangements in Clause 10, I strongly believe that the principle of manifest intent, as implied by that clause, should be adhered to. I see no reason why that principle should not apply to existing trade union members just as much as it should apply to future members, with appropriate transitional arrangements put in place.