Donations to Political Parties

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, for introducing the debate and for being so frank about the proposal. As he said right at the end, the alternative to private donations is state funding, which indeed is the lesson of everywhere where we have seen it happen.

There are two obvious objections to a state-funded system. First, we do not have the money. We already have taxes at a higher level than they have been since the end of the 1940s, when we were still coming back from full mobilisation. We are borrowing £150 billion a year and spending £110 billion of that fending off existing creditors and servicing—not paying off—the interest on existing debt. If only we were paying off some of it. The idea that, at this fiscal moment, we would make a new demand on the wallet of the taxpayers is eccentric—or brave, if I can put it more neutrally.

Secondly, once you put this power into the hands of the state, you necessarily open the door to arbitrary decisions as to which parties qualify or can be disqualified. When I was a Member of the European Parliament, this happened in Belgium. Private donations were more or less banned following the Agusta scandal. This then, in effect, put immense power in the hands of the majority of Belgian parties to defund political parties of which they disapproved—for example, because they were in favour of Flemish separatism. That is an extraordinarily powerful loaded gun to put in the hands of any Government. What is the alternative? If people cannot manage without state funding, maybe the parties should do less. Maybe they should trim their ambitions to their means, rather than having to spend all these gazillions on every election.

I am conscious of the time, so I will finish with two quotations. As the age becomes darker and more illiberal, I will cite two quotations from old Whig heroes, one from the end of the 18th century and another from the end of the 19th. I begin with Thomas Jefferson, who came out with a very powerful objection when he said,

“to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical”.

It is an extraordinary proposal. I am sure there would be people who would deeply resent funding me and I am sure other people would deeply resent funding the noble Lord, Lord Sikka—and others would dislike the idea of funding anyone in between us.

I will close with this, from JS Mill, who wrote that

“if the employees of all these different enterprises were paid by the government, and looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than in name”.

Amen.