House of Lords: Financial Assistance to Opposition Parties

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, when I was charged with putting together the Northern Ireland Assembly I came to the other place and consulted with the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, who was extremely helpful and generous in her guidance. I also drew on the experience of Clerks, Attendants and the Members and procedures of your Lordships’ House—particularly the respectful way in which Members treat with each other, because that seemed to me a very important aspect of parliamentary life.

One thing I did not draw upon was the grossly inadequate resources provided for all the Members of this House in the conduct of their business. When the Northern Ireland Assembly was brought into being, we ensured that all parties, on a per capita basis, had funding for staff for research purposes. If there is to be proper consideration of our work—policy work holding government to account and legislation—then the undoubtedly greater talents of your Lordships’ House have to be conveyed properly in the House and indeed beyond the House. It is not necessarily the case that money should be provided to groups, but resources of personnel need to be provided. Therefore, on the question of whether it is money or whether staff are employed and allocated to groups, there are various ways in which to achieve the same purpose. But the purpose must be to provide Members of your Lordships’ House with the opportunity of doing their work.

It is sometimes thought that it is purely a matter of policy research and producing amendments for Bills, but it is not. It is necessary for the groups to organise themselves in an orderly and proper fashion and to keep each other advised and informed of what is going on. But there is another purpose that has increasingly become important. At both ends of this building, we have been concerned about our relationship with the wider community, with non-governmental organisations and charitable bodies, with special interest groups and campaigns of various kinds, as well as with individual citizens of our country. One way in which your Lordships’ House has become particularly successful is that these groups have found your Lordships accessible. Very often, they have been brought together with members of different groups in your Lordships’ House by the very researchers paid for by Cranborne money. That has been the case not just with Liberal Democrats but with Cross-Benchers and members of other parties in your Lordships’ House.

As long as we have the adequate resources in all the parties—it is not a question of the Government and the Opposition in this regard—as in Northern Ireland, where money is allocated to parties whether in or out of government, on a per capita basis, that will enable us, as it has in the past, to engage properly with those charities, NGOs, interest groups, professionals and ordinary citizens who want to convey their message to Parliament. One great satisfaction that the community has found with your Lordships’ House in recent years has been with its accessibility and openness on a non-partisan and non-constituency basis to these important issues.

I support what has been said in the appeal to my noble friend the Leader of the House, that he gives consideration to this question. Of course, it is especially sensitive at a time of economic difficulty, when we are asking for cutbacks in all sorts of circumstances—that is absolutely the case. But at least at this time we might consider what kind of mechanism and formula might be possible so that at a time when it was more affordable we would be in a position to provide for your Lordships’ House the kind of resources necessary not only for our internal functioning and operation but for our relationship with the rest of the community.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, I ask for clarity in this resolution. Will the Leader of the House confirm that this resolution applies for the duration of this coalition Government? Now that there is the arrangement with the fixed-term Parliament, would he not consider it necessary to have a sunset clause for the termination of the arrangement?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, especially to the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd. I am certainly one who would never want to cut across what she says. I am glad that what she said was said with her customary elegance and force. There was also an element of logic behind it. I shall try to deal with all the points that the noble Baroness raised—no mean feat.

I do not share the view of one of my predecessors, Lord Williams of Mostyn, that it was an act of great generosity. I have always taken the view that parties that are in opposition or on the Cross Benches should receive support from the taxpayer so as to fulfil their functions. The noble Baroness said that it was a disproportionate way in which to do things. Her main point, I think, was that there was an unfairness between how the main party in opposition and the Cross Benches were dealt with.

This lies at the heart of how I think the House views the different roles of the Opposition and the Cross Benches. I was in opposition for a long time, so I know perhaps more than anyone else that the Opposition have a difficult task to do. In an unpaid, part-time House, they need to provide a substantial number of Peers to act as shadow Ministers and they do not have the benefit of the Civil Service to provide them with the papers and amendments that are required for the Opposition to function. As I have said many times, it is important that there should be a strong Opposition. That is why a substantial amount of support is provided to the party of opposition in this House, which is now the Labour Party. I do not think that anyone would believe that the nearly £500,000 given by the taxpayer to the Labour Party is overgenerous. It is probably about right and it allows the Opposition to do the work that they are asked to do.

Those conditions do not apply to the Cross Benches. The Cross-Benchers—I say this with the greatest respect—do not have a Front Bench or a central office. They are not involved in the formulation of policy. They do not need to negotiate with their colleagues in another place, because they do not have any colleagues in another place. As the noble Baroness pointed out—and I cannot disagree—the Cross-Benchers come together as a loose alliance for administrative purposes, but they are all individuals, with individual views of how things should be done. It may be that there is not quite enough money to help the Convenor to do her job. I do not wish to be in the least bit flippant about this and I pay the greatest tribute to the work that the Convenor of the Cross Benches does on behalf of her whole flock—indeed, I pay tribute to her predecessors, too. It is faintly shocking that, 10 years ago, the Cross Benches received nothing at all. The amount was reviewed only two years ago and was increased by 48 per cent—a substantial increase—to £61,000. The current amount is, I think, £63,000. I know that that was from a relatively low base, but I am always happy to receive representations from the Cross Benches and from the Convenor about whether that figure should be increased.

My noble friend Lord Alderdice raised an entirely different question, which was about the funding of political parties when they are in government. I am not enormously attracted to that idea. The purpose of Cranborne money, which is the subject of the Motion, was to support the parties of opposition. There is now only one party of opposition. Naturally, consideration was given as to whether the one party of opposition should receive all the Cranborne money, but wise counsel prevailed on both sides of the House. We took the view that, as the Liberal Democrats had joined us in coalition government, both we and they should give up that money. There is a good reason for that. We now have the resources of the Civil Service at our disposal to create policy and to do all the administrative work. We recognise that the civil servants do an excellent job.

Other Parliaments and Assemblies have created different traditions, particularly those that have almost inbuilt coalitions. I have no idea how long this coalition will last, although I hope that it will last for a long time. That leads me to the question raised by my noble friend Lord Dholakia. He rightly said that, if a second party of opposition should re-emerge, the whole situation should be reconsidered and the position reviewed. I cannot conceive of circumstances in which such a review would not be done in a most positive light, with Cranborne money reapplying to a second party of opposition.

Although the Motion on the Order Paper is slightly opaque, I think that it has now been clearly explained, not least by the noble Baroness, and I hope that we can now agree it.