European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I find it quite astonishing that a Conservative Government should introduce a Bill such as this. During the 1990s I was chairman of the northern region CBI. At conference after conference I listened to Conservative spokesmen promising a bonfire of red tape. The same dubious cry was taken up by David Cameron, and more latterly by Boris Johnson.

Yet here we are, facing a Bill that will not have proper scrutiny and gives businesses no time for preparation. It will increase the number of forms that have to be filled in by in excess of 200 million. It will cost businesses anything up to £15 billion. As my noble friend Lady Randerson pointed out, it will require at least 50,000 additional customs officers, along with thousands of additional public servants in government departments and quangos.

This is a bonfire not of red tape, but of business, and it presents an uncertain future for financial services. It is a perverse and retrograde step by a Conservative Party captured by an ideological, anti-European group, fuelled by populist, xenophobic nationalism. As the Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast, this bonfire of business will directly lead to a fall in GDP and to us being poorer, particularly those at the bottom of the pile.

That alone is a very good reason for voting against the Bill, but there is an even more important reason. As my noble friends Lady Northover and Lord Wallace of Saltaire said, it represents a damaging change in role for the United Kingdom that is wholly against the interests of its people. Never has there been a time since the Second World War when we need close allies and the closest co-operation between the nations of the world more. As the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, there never has been a time when we needed closer dialogue more, and a forum in which to solve world problems that we all face together.

Instead, we have the politics of slogans straight out of the Donald Trump playbook of making America great again. We are told we will have a “Global Britain”. We are told we are going to “Take back control”. They are meaningless slogans. As Churchill said after Dunkirk:

“Wars are not won by evacuations.”


This Bill is facilitating an evacuation and will do great damage to the country. For the sake of our children and our grandchildren, it should be opposed. I shall vote against it tonight with great enthusiasm.

Budget: North East of England

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will know that there is a Sheffield regional city devolution deal with an elected mayor. That is being set up, with an election scheduled I think for May next year. If other parts of Yorkshire want to approach the Government and offer a similar devolution deal, of course we would listen. When it comes to backdating resources, my colleagues in the Treasury might just pause before signing up to that one. But what we do not want to do is have an all-Yorkshire deal which then unwinds the deal that is already going ahead with the Sheffield City Region. The Government would listen very warmly to any work the noble Lord can do to encourage more authorities to come forward with devolution deals and elected mayors.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

The Minister is quite right to welcome the support that has been given to the north-east, in particular the support for Teesside, where the steelworks have been closed and where a Conservative mayor has been working very closely with the Labour authorities to ensure the success of the Government’s approach. The position on Tyneside is quite disastrous. I was chairman of the Port of Tyne Authority for a number of years, and with an international passenger terminal on one side of the river and docks on the other, working with different authorities across the river is going to be most difficult. Will the Minister therefore seek to do whatever he can to get the Labour authorities on the south side of the river to join their colleagues north of the river in order to set up a single authority for the whole area?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. He may have more influence than I have in seeking the reconciliation that he promotes, in view of his knowledge of and commitment to the area. On Tees Valley, as he referred to, the Chancellor announced £123 million of new funding to ensure the ongoing safe and secure management of the former SSI steelworks, and I welcome the close working between the mayor, Ben Houchen, and the local authority. On the north-east and Tyneside, whether it is too late for the four authorities to change their mind I do not know, but obviously we would like to go ahead with the previously proposed authority with all seven local authorities involved.

Democratic Political Activity (Funding and Expenditure) Bill [HL]

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 27th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a former treasurer of the Liberal Democrats and as a contributor to them. I am very pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who, as he mentioned, is one of a club of people in the House who take a close interest in these matters and have discussed them over many years, particularly in recent times.

I do not want to dwell on the past. We have rehearsed the arguments previously in this Chamber and certainly in the Select Committee with regard to the inequity of many aspects of party-political funding. As the noble Lord said, that is reflected in public opinion. The public see the inequity between the parties and would very much welcome a change to rectify it. However, the main thrust of my remarks is that things have moved on very quickly. I address that point to the Minister in particular. As the noble Lord said, changes have taken place that alter the whole landscape. In those circumstances, it is tremendously important that we discuss ways in which we regulate these things in the future.

My noble friend has been assiduous and persistent in raising these matters. I take my hat off to him for the way in which he has done that, and for reintroducing this Bill today and keeping these issues alive. It is a remarkable fact that Facebook was established in 2004, four years after PPERA—the main Act upon which our current system rests. That indicates the amazing speed of development of not only the digital world but of parties’ campaigning activities. A series of issues need to be, and should be, considered in all-party discussions. It would be much better to proceed on that basis than any other. I think the public would welcome the sight of the parties getting together to try to reach agreement in at least some of these areas of activity. It is not just a case of the inequity of this issue: candidates and party members, a large number of whom are volunteers, as we all know, who are doing responsible jobs in their spare time at constituency level and other levels in political parties, are being put in a difficult position. They are not always as well trained and qualified as one might like and they are being put in an extremely difficult position when the law and the regulation are unclear. Look at the use of data and Facebook advertising. The best example of it was in 2015, when the Conservative Party spent £1.2 million on Facebook advertising. I find it unbelievable that that was not targeted at individual constituencies and, within those, swing voters. All the parties are of course seeking to identify those swing voters in marginal constituencies, but that is a substantial amount of money. As I said, Facebook has appeared on the scene only recently, so this is a completely new development that needs to be taken into account.

As the noble Lord mentioned, the collection and use of data must be taken into account as it becomes more sophisticated. Artificial intelligence is being used to sift and analyse it so that the targeting of advertising and other activities can be more precise than ever before. We need also to look at the role and powers of the commission and the police in relation to electoral activity.

I once had a dispute over my expenses and know how much of a distraction and anxiety that can be. I am sure a lot of Conservative MPs have experienced that following the 2015 election and the inquiries into their expenses. It is a serious matter and can lead to the end of a politician’s career if things have gone wrong. There is so much uncertainty today around, for instance, the balance of national and local expenditure. What constitutes local expenditure in these days of digital campaigning and the use of data? We need to discuss that uncertainty and find a way to deal with it.

The noble Lord mentioned the position of Northern Ireland. Although dealt with in the Bill, that is another area that needs to be discussed so that agreement can be reached on how to proceed.

There is a series of issues giving rise to great uncertainty. That is unfair on the people working for parties, candidates and their supporters in their constituencies and around the country. We need to clarify this. It is for that reason, if no other, that all-party discussions on how we can proceed on these matters would benefit all the parties and enhance public confidence in our financing. I hope that in responding to the debate the Minister will say that he will institute discussions between the parties. We hope to have some breathing space before there is another election, though goodness knows whether we will or not, and local council elections are coming down the track in May in many parts of the country. It would be of great benefit if, before the next general election, we could have all-party talks to iron out these matters and bring some clarity to the situation.

Political Parties (Funding and Expenditure) Bill [HL]

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 10th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend on introducing this very comprehensive Bill. I hope it will push forward the debates we have had in this Chamber and elsewhere on this very important topic. I was also a member of the Select Committee on Trade Union Political Funds and Political Party Funding, and the reason for that and for my interest in this is that I spent the years running up to the last election as treasurer of the Liberal Democrats, raising more than £20 million in the run-up to and during that election campaign. So I got some first-hand experience not only in the business world but in raising funds for political parties.

Before I go on to comment on the Bill and on the current state of the debate on this matter, I want to respond to the noble Lord, Lord True. He went through a series of instances and all I say to him about the Brown case and others like them—and this refers to all parties—is that, if the Bill or anything like it were on the statute book, none of those things would have happened. I spent last night with Sarah Olney, with the leader of the Liberal Democrats in Richmond and party members there, and I say to the noble Lord, in response to his comments about the Richmond local authority, well, we will see him at the ballot box next May.

The noble Lord, Lord Bew, raised some important features as well, but I think that the most important feature of the Bill is the reform of contributions. Bringing down the scale of contributions, introducing a cap so that the abuses that have taken place in the past can be avoided, would mean that trust in politicians could, I hope, be improved. I do not expect, frankly, that that is going to happen soon, because I think the party opposite will be adamantly opposed to any such reform. They clearly have a massive advantage from major donors in the funding of the Conservative Party and have had for many years. Therefore, I am not optimistic that that change will take place until another Government come into office and change it. The present Government need to remember that while they may be riding high at the moment, Governments do and will change, and circumstances may well lead to the change they do not want to see taking place at some time in the future.

The Labour Party has made major, very welcome reforms following the Collins review of political funding of the Labour Party by the trade unions. I think the changes that have taken place there have moved us in the right direction, towards individual donations, which should, in a rational world, enable the major parties to come to some agreement on how we move ahead in the future.

Another consequence of putting a cap on major payments is that it would make parties do what I think would be very good for our democracy, which President Obama demonstrated in his fundraising activities for his campaigns, and that is that it would make the parties go out to the electorate and raise funds—small donations—from many, many people. I have had to do this. It is very good for the health of democracy and for the parties that we should be forced into the position of having to go to thousands and thousands of people. If you had a cap of £10,000 you would have to do that. That would be a very good thing in our political life and parties would have to respond to a cap of that sort.

The noble Lord, Lord Bew, mentioned the changes in political campaigning. I agree with him that the speed with which campaigning methods are now progressing means that it all needs to be reviewed. The change in using social media in particular enables us to raise funds from a very substantial number of people, and day by day we see all sorts of examples of this happening. There is crowdfunding of all sorts of very good causes, people in crises, companies—it is a whole new scene. There is no reason why, and indeed I think it is happening to some extent, the political parties could not do the same thing, extend their reach and get over the whole burden of major donations being made to parties.

That is the biggest necessary reform, but I do not expect it to happen soon because I think the Conservative Party will be adamantly opposed to it. But there are some things, a number of which have been mentioned in the debate, that could be usefully discussed in talks between the major parties. When the coalition was in office, the Deputy Prime Minister called for all-party talks. Unfortunately, although the Labour Party responded by nominating a shadow Cabinet Minister and its general secretary to take part, and the Liberal Democrats did the same, the Conservative Party did not respond at all, despite being partners in government.

It was not until the Peter Cruddas affair hit the Sunday Times that the Conservative Party decided it should do something about it. I think the Prime Minister spoke to the Deputy Prime Minister when he learned that that exposure was going to be made in the Sunday Times and suggested that he would give names to him for the all-party talks to take place, and sure enough this was used as a cover for the Cruddas coverage at that time—a very cynical way in which to handle it. Of course, no real progress was made in those talks because the Conservative Party was not interested in making progress on any of the major matters that we discussed there.

The abuses that have been taking place and are being investigated at the moment demonstrate the need for those talks to take place as soon as possible. My noble friend referred to the investigations that the police and the Electoral Commission are carrying out. In 1979, a case went to the High Court over my election expenses, and I agree with my noble friend that it is quite unacceptable that these investigations have been going on for almost two years now and the Members of Parliament concerned have no certainty over their future in Parliament, because if the police find a case against them—if abuse is found—those Conservative Members who are being investigated could lose their seats. That is an impossible position for them to be in—guilty or not guilty. The matter should be resolved and it should be resolved very quickly.

As my noble friend said, we said in the Select Committee report that talks should take place. The Government have been extremely reluctant, as demonstrated by the time it took the Minister to respond to the Select Committee report, but there are some useful things that could be discussed. I urge the Minister to respond positively to this. There are changes—some have been mentioned already in the debate; no doubt others will be as well—possibly in the tax treatment of political donations or in methods of fundraising that could be considered by joint talks, as well as the distribution of the existing funding of parties. It is a bit of a myth that there is no state funding of the parties at present. There is enormous state funding of the political parties. Whether it is through support for research assistants in Parliament or the freepost mechanism, there is an enormous amount of money and that could be looked at and a more equitable system worked out.

I hope that the Minister will respond to the debate by saying that the Government are going to initiate talks between the political parties. I think it would be welcome to the public. It certainly would be welcome on these Benches and, I hope, the Labour Benches as well, and I hope the Minister will respond well to the debate by saying that talks will be initiated.

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.