Trade Union Political Funds and Political Party Funding

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[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 Cormack (Con)]

He has.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, one person has not yet been thanked today: the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. She moved very passionately the Motion that led to the large majority in your Lordships’ House and to the establishment of the committee under the noble Lord, Lord Burns. I opposed her, not because I disagreed; we agreed entirely on the principle but I advocated some form of sunrise clause before clauses that in their present form I regard as pernicious should come into force. She carried the day, though, and I am glad she did. Like the noble Lord, Lord Burns, who voted as I did, I think we were wrong, and he above all has proved that.

Something else has been proved to me: the extraordinary value of your Lordships’ House, and the procedures that allow us to set up this sort of committee. It also illustrates the enormous value of having a sizeable number of Cross-Benchers. Some of your Lordships—indeed, a number are present this evening—know of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, which I have had the honour of chairing since I founded it with the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, 15 or 16 years ago. It argues for a House that is appointed, not elected. One of the central points that we have always argued is that a great virtue of an appointed House is that it is not dominated by a political party and that it has a large number of Cross-Benchers.

The noble Lord, Lord Burns, has been the Cross-Bencher par excellence. His committee, drawn from different wings of different parties, has produced an exemplary report. It is wise, balanced, judicious and precise in its recommendations, and no one can ask more from any report than that. I am entirely happy with its main thrust and recommendations and, had I had the good fortune to be on that committee, I would certainly have been one of those who voted for paragraph 142(a).

Whatever the motivation for these two clauses—and I am not seeking to criticise motivation; I always accept the good faith of people who put forward arguments but I am prepared to challenge their judgment and the good sense of the arguments—the effect is to bear down upon one political party, and I do not like that. I have said in your Lordships’ House before that a passionate belief in fairness was fundamental to the Conservative Party that I joined. These two clauses in their present form are not fair. I said that on 20 January, when we set up this committee, and I repeat it again tonight. I very much hope that when my noble friend comes to respond she will heed the very wise words of my noble friend Lord Callanan. He and I would not necessarily be completely in accord, but we are certainly in accord in recognising that unless and until something is done about political funding which applies to all political parties, this will be perceived to be unfair. Where I differ from him is that he would go for paragraph 142(b) and I would go for paragraph 142(a). However, in every other respect we can be of one accord.

A committee set up to discuss funding should look at many things, such as whether donations to political parties should be tax deductible—I believe that they should—or whether there should be a cap on the amounts that individuals and organisations can give; I believe that there should be. However, it will not be an easy task, as the noble Lord, Lord Bew, made all too plain in his very perceptive contribution to our debate this evening. It will take time, so I hope the Government will recognise the cogency of the arguments in this exemplary report, as I have called it, and put on one side these two clauses—possibly by accepting the very long but extremely well-worked-out amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. They will do that; they will set up cross-party talks, at which all parties should be willing participants, each party realising that it will not get everything it wants. There would be quite a lot to be said—although it is a funny way of passing a vote of thanks—for asking the noble Lord, Lord Burns, to chair a committee of your Lordships’ House that would look into this. If the Government do not act speedily and set this up, let us have another Smith resolution and see whether we can do it. With good will, we probably could.

However, if we can park these two clauses and deal with some of the other mean-minded parts of the Bill such as Clause 14, we can get something on to the statute book which both honours the manifesto commitments of the government party—I always wonder how many people read manifestos, but that is another issue—and does not bear down unfairly on a great party that has contributed much to the evolution of our democracy. I have never been tempted to join it but I have increasingly come to admire it and increasingly to mourn what has happened in very recent months. We need a credible Opposition who can be seen as a possible Government and we do not want tit for tat when that happens.

I commend the report very enthusiastically, thank again the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and his colleagues from all parts of the House, and I hope that this will give us a sensible, balanced approach on which we can build a Bill in which we can all take some pride.