General Elections: Party-political Spending

Lord Cormack Excerpts
Wednesday 29th November 2023

(5 months, 2 weeks ago)

Lords Chamber
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Baroness Penn Portrait Baroness Penn (Con)
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I completely reject the premise of the noble Lord’s question. We have transparency in our system so that people can see who donates to political parties. The alternative to donations to political parties is government funding of political parties and campaigning. That is not something that we on these Benches wish to see.

Lord Cormack Portrait Lord Cormack (Con)
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My Lords, in view of the influence that the press very often has on elections, will my noble friend the Minister read the admirable article by my noble friend Lord Hague in yesterday’s Times, which indicated that it would not be a service to democracy for one of our notable daily papers and one of our notable weekly magazines to be bought by foreigners?

Baroness Penn Portrait Baroness Penn (Con)
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I always enjoy reading articles by my noble friend and I will undertake to read that one.