Foreign Interference in UK Politics

Debate between Lord Pack and Lord Lemos

Thursday 9th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, I will resist the temptation to ask the Minister to remind us what consultation the previous Conservative Government carried out with either his party or mine over, for example, changing the electoral system for elections of mayors or expense limits for general elections.

Instead, to go to the heart of the matter, these Benches very much share the concerns set out in the Rycroft review about the risk of foreign money influencing, or even corrupting, our politics. We therefore broadly welcome the Government’s commitment to implementing the report. However, I have some concerns about the intended speed of implementation, some of the loopholes that will remain, and one particular issue that is not mentioned in the Government’s response, which I suspect the Minister can successfully predict.

I turn first to the intended pace of implementation. On recommendation 4, regarding non-party campaigners and related issues, the Government have said they will

“commit to consultation and further work”.

They are not even committing to action on that one. On recommendation 14, on internet advertising, the Government have promised “proposals in due course”. On recommendation 16, on think tanks and associated issues, the Government’s commitment is that they will

“consider opportunities for further work”.

I fear that you can almost hear the wheels of Whitehall grinding to a halt as you consider that phrase. I hope the Minister can set out clear timelines for the Government’s intended progress on those recommendations, which are, after all, on substantive major issues such as the role of online advertising.

On loopholes, I have raised before the question of the Government’s apparent inconsistent approach to politics and the media. They appear to be sticking to a significant control test for companies that permits greater foreign ownership of a company that donates to our politics than is permitted for a company that owns one of our newspapers. It remains unclear to me why the Government think that a lower level of protection against foreign interference in our politics than in our media is appropriate. I hope the Minister might be able to clarify that.

The Government are proposing—in a broad sense, this is a welcome step in the right direction—introducing a new threshold of £2,230, above which pre-campaign donations to individual candidates would need to be declared. That sounds a reasonable threshold, until one remembers that British-wide political parties will typically stand 633 candidates across the country, or, if not contesting the Speaker’s seat, 632 candidates. Therefore, 632 lots of some £2,000 gets you to nearly £1.5 million-worth of donations that could be made legally, legitimately and in secret, unless the Government also propose to go a little further and introduce aggregation requirements around those donations to individual candidates. I hope the Minister can tell us what is intended on that front.

Indeed, the Government Statement is rather silent on whether similar protection will be extended to, for example, elections for the Mayor of Greater Manchester or the Mayor of London. Those, among other elected posts at other levels of election, have important power, and, although we have not yet had a track record of having to worry about foreign money in such elections, it would seem to me prudent to extend such protections.

Finally, I turn to the consolidation of election law and the dangers, costs and complexity that arise from the messy and fragile state of election law, In the past, I have used the parallel of a teenager with a messy bedroom—the Government never quite decide that now is the time to start cleaning up that bedroom The Rycroft review said:

“I urge Government to consider”


action in this area. Because that was a boxed-out urging of the Government to consider, rather than a formal recommendation, the Government’s response so far has been silent on that particular part of the Rycroft review. I hope the Minister, having been urged by Rycroft to consider this issue, can tell us what consideration the Government have come to.

To push on one specific example, consolidation does not have to a be a big project, put off for ever only to be done in one big bang. It is possible to pick off little individual issues. For example, it is possible to look at redundant legislation on the statute book, the repeal of which would have no or only minimal knock-on consequences. It is a bit like picking up the dirty crisp packet from the middle of the floor—we are not going to tidy the whole bedroom but can at least pick up some of the easy bits. I have one specific question. The Parliamentary Elections Act 1695 seems to me to be the perfect crisp packet—an easy thing that could be picked off and repealed under the Representation of the People Bill. I hope the Minister can tell us that that is going to be added to the Government’s plans.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

My Lords, I will come to that question at the end, if I may.

The Secretary of State commissioned Philip Rycroft to conduct an independent review of risks posed by foreign financial influence in UK politics. In March, we welcomed Mr Rycroft’s comprehensive assessment and announced immediate plans to accept two recommendations responding to urgent risks. A week ago, in your Lordships’ House, I said that the Government would publish their response very soon, and I am delighted to say I was right. They have now published their full response and, as noble Lords know, the Government have accepted all of Mr Rycroft’s recommendations. I will come to the specific points that the noble Lord, Lord Pack, made in a moment. I welcome the support—I would not say it is qualified support—from all the Benches opposite for Rycroft and our acceptance of the recommendations.

In response to Mr Rycroft’s recommendations, we will strengthen our political finance rules through amendments to the Representation of the People Bill. I should note, because this is an important point that the noble Baroness made, that the Minister will be writing to political parties to set out these measures in much more detail, and that letter will be publicly available on GOV.UK. I will come to the question of discussions and engagement in a moment.

We will introduce an annual £100,000 cap on donations and regulated transactions from overseas electors. It is materially more complex to trace the true source of political donations made by voters living overseas, and this creates a clear avenue for the channelling of illicit funds. There is a simple principle at stake here, which I think we all share: we want the people who make donations to political parties to have a genuine stake in the life of the UK. That is the principle we are seeking to achieve. A cap recognises legitimate participation while ending the risk of unlimited overseas money entering our politics. The noble Baroness referred to those risks, and the Government are very alive to them.

Recognising that risk continues when British citizens return to the UK, and therefore we are introducing a minimum residency period. The risk is very clear. An overseas elector returning to the UK must be here for a full calendar year before that cap is lifted, to prevent circumvention of the regime. Once the measures come into force, that minimum residency period will apply retrospectively, from the date of our original announcement on 25 March. I note the comments that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, made about retrospection, but the Government’s view is that there are clear risks and we should address them in the way that we have.

We will apply the same cap and the minimum residency period to anyone who moves to the UK after the date of the Statement and was not previously an overseas elector, to ensure these individuals cannot circumvent the rules before commencement. That is the risk. A modified cap will apply retrospectively and an annual cap of £100,000 per recipient will apply to donations they make between today and the date of the commencement of the measures, including any regulated transactions they enter into from today. On commencement, the cap and the minimum residency period will apply in the same way as for those who were formerly overseas electors.

As we previously announced, we will introduce a moratorium on all political donations of any amount made via cryptocurrency. The arrangements around crypto are simply too opaque.

Building on previous announcements, and in response to the review, we will go further to strengthen our political finance safeguards. We will amend the corporate donation test, so that it is based on post-tax profits rather than revenue, measured over five years to prevent double counting. We will introduce a new donor declaration to be made by anyone donating above a specified threshold. We will engage with the Electoral Commission and political parties as we develop the declaration, including an appropriate threshold. We are introducing a raft of transparency measures.

We will also strengthen rules and transparency on donations to candidates. Candidates will have to declare that donations to fund campaigning—as the noble Lord, Lord Pack, said—made prior to formally becoming a candidate are from permissible sources. Donations in that period above £2,230 will need to be cleared. The noble Lord, Lord Pack, asked me about aggregation. We have no plans to legislate on aggregation at the moment.

We recognise how vital it is for the health of our democracy that we have a regulator that is fearlessly independent and, to the noble Baroness’s point, properly resourced to do the job that we are asking it to do. That is why, to ensure its independence, we are also repealing the Government’s powers to designate a strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission. Beyond political finance, we will take steps in the Representation of the People Bill and more broadly to implement these important reforms.

If I do not manage to cover everything in the time I have left, I will come back to noble Lords. On consultation, I do not have anything to add. The noble Lord, Lord Pack, gave a very adequate response on the history, so I shall not go over that again. I do, however, accept the noble Baroness’s point that we are trustees, not proprietors, of the political finance system. I take that very seriously. I take very seriously the risks of tit for tat—I said this in the debate last week—and the risk that future Governments might get into a prisoner’s dilemma.

I do not, however, accept that these reforms are partisan, hyper-partisan or otherwise. I agree with the noble Baroness that that is not a scenario we want to see. The Parliamentary Parties Panel of the Electoral Commission has continued discussions between parties. I assure the noble Baroness that I will, as this legislation proceeds—I will be taking it through your Lordships’ House—engage in a lot of detail with anyone who is keen enough to talk to me. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, has already had the pleasure of my company on these matters; I bow to his superior knowledge. I can see him waiting to rise to his feet. On the resources of the Electoral Commission, I take the point that the noble Baroness made.

On a point from the noble Lord, Lord Pack, I take very seriously the question of online adverts and, indeed, misinformation online generally. I see the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, nodding. I do not think any of us feel we have cracked it, to be blunt, and this is an area that we will have to continue to think about in relation to political representation, online advertising and so on. We will all be here on this subject for some years to come.

On foreign ownership of the media, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Pack, will forgive me if I do not get drawn into that, but I take the point he made. I have already discussed our plans on aggregation.

On consolidation, I think I did answer this last week, but I am very happy to repeat my answer, which is that the Government want to fulfil the commitments they made in their manifesto. I was going to say “as a first step”, but I had better not say that because it might get me into a whole lot of trouble. That is our priority, and noble Lords can understand why. I understand the arguments, and the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, made the same arguments to me yesterday about consolidation.

On the 1695 Act, I will have to come back to the noble Lord. I commend the Statement, despite that absence in my knowledge, to your Lordships.