Financial Assistance to Opposition Parties and the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, I have given the noble Baroness the Leader of the House notice of this intervention, which arises because I understand that this Motion, if we pass it, will give taxpayers’ money—Cranborne money, I think it is called—to the Liberal Democrats to help them to run their affairs in your Lordships’ House and perhaps elsewhere. If so, I suggest that your Lordships do not pass it until we have agreed an appropriate award of finance for my party, the UK Independence Party.

I ask this against the background of the admittedly unwise policy of the previous coalition Government, which I understand was inspired by the Liberal Democrats and to which I gather they still adhere. That committed the Prime Minister to recommend new Peers to Her Majesty in proportion to the votes cast in the previous general election. That policy would have given the Liberal Democrats some 43 Peers in your Lordships’ House, from their 8% share of the votes cast in May. In fact, they enjoy 102 Peers. Should this situation not be set against UKIP’s present three Peers, from our 13% share of that vote? Under the previous Liberal Democrat policy, we should have 69—so they have 59 more Peers than they should, whereas we have 66 fewer. I trust your Lordships will agree that we should have at least some Cranborne money to help us with our work here.

Noble Lords may be aware that I am in correspondence with the Prime Minister to adjust the present injustice by recommending a number of UKIP Peers to Her Majesty. I trust that we can revisit this matter, if and when that happens. I am not entirely confident that we will get a decent number of Peers, but surely masters cannot go on being so unfair to Molesworth for ever—or can they?

While I am at it, since 185 Peers joined us in the last Parliament, with none for UKIP, and we are already somewhat cramped for space, would not one sensible solution be for, say, 30 Liberal Democrat Peers to stand down? That would free up a share of Cranborne money for UKIP and give us all rather more space. Would not that kill two birds with one stone? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, if I may, I will respond very briefly. I do not think that the matter relates to how many Liberal Democrats are here. The fact remains that there are almost 102 Liberal Democrats, which has been recognised by the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal in the resolution that she has put before us. The intention is that we would perform as the second largest opposition party in this Chamber and, accordingly, we welcome the contribution being given to us as part of the Cranborne money.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, for giving me notice of his intention to contribute on this Motion. He makes his presence felt in your Lordships’ House, and he and his UKIP colleagues are an important part of the membership of this House. However, as I think he will know, the Cranborne money is provided for opposition parties in this House on a formula that is very different from the way in which Short money is provided in the House of Commons. It is very much based on the size of the opposition parties in this House and not reflective in any way of popular vote share or seats in another place. He may wish that matters were different in this House when it comes to numbers—I recognise that his view is widely shared; I made that point when responding to questions last week—but we have to deal with the situation that we find ourselves in. Following the appropriate discussions in the usual channels, this Motion returns the level of funding for the second-largest opposition party in this House to what it was, in proportionate terms, before 2010.

I am not going to comment on the noble Lord’s wish that there be more UKIP Members in this House. The Cranborne money is provided for the opposition parties to operate a Front Bench. I am not sure that the noble Lord, as effective as he is, is in a position to provide the range of posts that might lead UKIP to become a significant strength in terms of a shadow Front Bench in this House, but I am grateful to him for all that he does, even though his numbers are limited at this time.