Party Funding Reform

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

I am very pleased to follow the noble Lord in the comments he has just made. We are all anxious about the consequences of not doing something about this subject, and I have a tremendous sense of déjà vu this evening, because of the debates that have been held so often in the past on this subject. The solution to the problem that the noble Lord has just outlined lies with his own Government and with the Conservative Party. If they are not prepared to see reform taking place, and not even prepared to call all-party talks to try to get agreement, no progress will be made and the electorate will rightly be cynical about manifestos which promise things that are then not carried out. The Conservative Party manifesto, on this subject, is frankly not worth the paper it is written on, because none of the things that were suggested in it have been done.

We know from our experience in the coalition Government—from the Deputy Prime Minister and David Laws speaking to colleagues from the Conservative Party—that the Conservatives were not prepared to carry out what they had committed themselves to in their own manifesto. If the £50,000 cap that was promised had been introduced, a lot of these problems would not have arisen. I do not agree with the noble Lord about the cap having consequences. It would get rid of a lot of the cynicism about major donors running or influencing parties in their own interests, but it would also—I speak as a former treasurer of the Liberal Democrats—force the parties to go out and get more donors.

Look what President Obama did in the United States with crowdfunding; look what lots of venture capitalists are doing with it. If you want to do it, and make the effort, you can get the money from a substantial number of people. As party treasurer, I raised as much for the Liberal Democrats as the Labour Party raised from individuals and small businesses. In fact, most of the time I raised more, as the Labour Party has not historically needed to go out and get those individual funds in, because it has had the trade union funding. It would be an incentive if the cap was introduced, as well as getting rid of a lot of the electorate’s cynicism towards the funding of political parties.

The Labour Party has shown that it is willing to shift its view. It introduced legislation when it was in government, and the report of the noble Lord, Lord Collins, which we looked at, which will lead to reform in the funding of the Labour Party, was a substantial step in the right direction—which I, frankly, never thought it would take—moving to individual donations.

The Government’s response tonight is crucial. Are we going to make progress on this issue or not? I think the Labour Party is willing to have discussions; the Liberal Democrats certainly are; I do not know about the other parties.

Look at what happened in the coalition days. The Deputy Prime Minister called for all-party talks—my noble friend was very much involved in that. We had a response from the Labour Party; we Liberal Democrats gave a response. We waited and waited for a response from the Conservative Party, but none was forthcoming until there was a scandal which led to the Conservative Party treasurer having to resign. On the day that that story broke in the Sunday Times, all of a sudden, the Conservative Party came up with nominees for the all-party talks. Surprise, surprise.

So I am deeply cynical about the seriousness of the party opposite ever reforming the system. I suspect that it will always be other parties that will introduce the reforms that are so necessary.

State funding could come in many forms. As the noble Lord, Lord Sherborne, said, there is already substantial state funding of political parties. I think the noble Lord referred to it as soft funding. Soft, hard, or whatever, it is a lot of money. Providing the funds for political parties to mail virtually the whole of the country with election addresses during a general election is a substantial amount of state funding. So are the Short, Cranborne and other funds that come in from the state. The principle has already been established; it is not new.

I do not know whether noble Lords opposite would be prepared to consider another alternative—giving tax relief to parties, as happens with charitable donations. There is a respectable argument for doing that. I agree with the comments made earlier that funding political parties is a noble thing to do. Democracy would be nowhere without resources being found to run our parties, and we should praise individuals for being prepared to support them by making contributions. If we believe that, we should consider tax relief on contributions. I do not know whether noble Lords opposite would regard that as state funding or whether they would be prepared to consider it.

There are various ways in which this problem could be overcome, but it will not be unless we all sit down together to talk about it. There is an immense obligation on the Government to get talks under way. It is the cynicism bred by parties breaking manifesto commitments and not doing the things they say they will that leads to the growth of the protest vote through the UKIPs of this world—and, indeed, the Trumps in the United States—those disillusioned with existing parties for not carrying out the things they say they will.

I urge the Government immediately—I hope that we will hear this from the Minister this evening—to get talks between the parties under way to try to reach some sort of agreement. With his report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, has given us immense help and information to point us in the right direction. There is an agenda there that could achieve progress, and I very much hope that we will hear from the Minister this evening that that is what the Government are going to do.