Party Funding

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Ed Miliband

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

Let me say first to the Minister for the Cabinet Office that it should not be him at the Dispatch Box today; it should have been the Prime Minister who came to the House, because the revelations this weekend concern his office, his policy unit and his judgment. It shows utter contempt for this House that the Prime Minister could make a statement to the media just three hours ago but refuse to come here to face Members of Parliament. I think we all know why: he has something to hide.

I will come to the wider party funding issues that the Minister raises, but let us be clear that the reason why he has come to the House today is not the long-standing debate about party funding, but this weekend’s revelations. Let me remind the House that this is about the Prime Minister’s chief fundraiser seeking cash for access. What did he say? He said:

“The first thing we do… is get you at the Cameron and Osborne dinners, and in fact some of our bigger donors have been for dinner in No. 10 Downing Street”.

It is about seeking cash for influence. [Interruption.] I think that hon. Members should listen and hear about the seeking of cash for influence. He said:

“We get a chance to ask the Prime Minister questions… What do you think we are going to do about the top rate of tax… Everything is confidential”.

And it is about seeking cash for policy. I quote:

“If you’re… unhappy about something… we’ll listen to you and we’ll put it into the policy committee at No. 10.”

These represent grave allegations about the way access is gained and policy is made. They are about a breaking down of the lines between support for a political party and Government policy.

First, will the Minster accept that it is completely inadequate, given the scale of these allegations, for an investigation into what happened to be conducted by the Conservative party? A Conservative peer, appointed by the Prime Minister, an inquiry into the Conservative party, by the Conservative party and for the Conservative party—it is a whitewash and everyone knows it. We need a proper, independent inquiry appropriate to the gravity of what is at stake. Will the Minister now agree to an inquiry conducted by the independent adviser on ministerial interests, Sir Alex Allan?

On cash for access, the inquiry should specifically cover all the donors the Prime Minister has met in Government buildings—Downing street and Chequers—since May 2010; whether any of those meetings were in response to promises of cash for access; and whether other senior Ministers, including the Chancellor, have held such meetings.

On cash for influence, the inquiry should cover whether Conservative party donors were offered the chance, as Peter Cruddas said, to put forward policy ideas in exchange for donations; whether any of these ideas were forwarded to the No. 10 policy unit; which of them found their way into the Chancellor’s Budget; and whether Government Departments have been asked by Downing street to facilitate ministerial and official meetings with donors. Above all, the inquiry needs to investigate the breaking down of the boundary between the Prime Minister as leader of his party and the Prime Minister as Head of the Government.

Yesterday we were told that the only people who had been to dinner in Downing street were a few “long-standing friends” invited to the private flat. Today Downing street has admitted that some of them were not invited because they were long-standing friends at all and that it was not in the private flat; it was a thank-you dinner for donors to the Conservative party held inside Downing street. In total, £18 million came from 12 donors. It was not the premier league, but the champions league of Tory donors—I bet they did all right in the Budget. And even that is not a complete list, because the Prime Minister has refused to name donors he met on Government property who donated less than £50,000. What is the excuse? It is that only donations of £50,000 are significant donations. Only this Prime Minister would think a donation of £49,000, twice the average salary, was not significant.

Next, does the Minister for the Cabinet Office agree that the rules on party political funding are clear? It is illegal to solicit donations—[Interruption.] I would have thought he would like to hear about this; it is about illegality and allegations of illegality. It is illegal to solicit donations through overseas companies and illegal to disguise those donations, yet there are allegations that this was exactly what Mr Cruddas was suggesting. Will the Minister now undertake to recommend to the Prime Minister that he refer the Conservative party to the Electoral Commission to investigate this practice by Mr Cruddas and whether it has been practised by other Conservative party donors?

Thirdly, on the issue of party funding, I am somewhat surprised by the Minister suddenly now saying that he wants to restart talks. Let me provide the House with some background. The Deputy Prime Minister wrote to me and the Prime Minister on 8 February, seeking cross-party talks with heads of terms to be decided by Easter—very soon. I replied with my suggested nominees 12 days later. Such was the Government’s enthusiasm for reform, that in the five weeks since then I have heard precisely nothing about those talks, and neither has either of my nominees.

What are we to make of the Government’s new-found enthusiasm for reform? What a coincidence—the day after the Tory treasurer seeks cash for access. And who have they nominated for those talks? The Minister, and another great reformer, the Conservative party chairman, Lord Feldman. He is the man who fatally undermined the Kelly inquiry by writing at the eleventh hour to say that a £10,000 cap on donations was unacceptable because it would

“hugely inhibit the ability of political parties to engage with the electorate.”

Perhaps he should have said, “hugely inhibit the power of rich individuals to influence policy in Downing street.” We are happy to have proper talks about funding, but it is ridiculous for the Government to seek to use them as a smokescreen for the revelations this weekend.

The problem is that these people, as we saw with last week’s Budget, think they can get away with anything—and they have been found out. The weekend’s revelations show this Government cannot deliver the change we need. They promised transparency, they promised to clean up politics; now they will not even agree to a proper inquiry, and the Prime Minister is too ashamed to come to this House to explain his conduct.

This scandal speaks to the conduct and character of the Prime Minister and the Government. Anything short of an independent inquiry will leave a permanent stain on this Government and this Prime Minister.

[Mr Maude]

For 13 years the Leader of the Opposition was at the heart of the Labour Government. For 13 years they had the chance to make government transparent. For 13 years they had the chance to reform party funding. For 13 years they did nothing—nothing. And, worse than nothing, they blocked reform, because who was it who stopped the Hayden Phillips reforms going through? It was Labour. The House need not rely on me for that; it can rely on Peter Watt, the then general secretary of the Labour party, who said:

“My primary emotion during the process was intense frustration, because my own party”—

Labour—

“was the biggest block to reform.”

So the right hon. Gentleman should not come here, grandstand and claim the moral high ground. His party has a shameful role in the past. He should come here to say sorry for blocking the reform that was there to be had.

Labour in office gave us the cash for honours affair and a police investigation into proxy donations, and I remind the right hon. Gentleman, lest he forget in his new-found enthusiasm for independent investigation, that the investigation into the David Abrahams affair was conducted not by some independent person but by Lord Whitty, a former general secretary of the Labour party. And now that Labour is in opposition, its donors do not just buy policy—they elect the leader. That is why, after the right hon. Gentleman was elected Leader of the Opposition, the first thing he did was to go up to the leaders of Unite, put an arm round their shoulders, and say a warm, heartfelt “Thank you.”

We have heard about cash for policy, and cash can buy policy, but not on this side of the House. It was shocking recently to discover that votes can be decided on the basis of money paid and a cheque cashed. In fact, Labour, back in 2004 in the Warwick agreement, drew up its election programme on the back of an agreement to have union donations that would fund its campaign, so the right hon. Gentleman should not come here and lecture us about cash for policy, because Labour Members are the past masters at it—and look where it has got them. The shadow Health Secretary—he is over there—tabled amendments pushed by his union backers. [Interruption.] The shadow Justice Secretary could not confirm Labour’s own—[Interruption.]