Political Donations

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell), for opening this debate, and Mr Stone, who started the petition. May I also say to the parliamentarians present that the speeches today have been excellent? I have really enjoyed listening and I thank hon. Members for that. I also thank the 235 people in Stroud who signed the petition and the many more who have emailed me about their worries regarding political donations. I have spent a lot of the last two years knocking on doors and the most common theme has been, “You’re all the same—you’re all corrupt.” The lack of trust in politics was very alarming, and it is something that parliamentarians of all parties need to be aware of.

I would like to talk briefly about two issues: the financing of political parties and lobbying. In Stroud, we were supplied with a contract by a Tory councillor for personal protective equipment that was 85% faulty. People on the frontline were left with faulty equipment. We all wonder, but do not know, why that contract was issued. Something like £93 million has been donated to political parties, and two thirds of that was donated by 19 individuals in this country. Is it fair, in a democracy, that there is so much power in the hands of so few people? That is something of which we need to be aware. As many hon. Members have said, the external foreign donations are what brought this debate to a head, because we are all extremely alarmed by stories of hundreds of millions of pounds going to certain political parties.

I will not talk for very long because we have heard so many excellent speeches, but I would first ask if we should question whether the donations system is a good one on which to run our politics in the first place. Secondly, “know your donor” checks, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) mentioned, are incredibly important. We must vet donors and make sure that the money is coming from a fair place. We need to look at all overseas donors. In fact, I would say that we need to ban any overseas donors to our political parties. I also believe in a cap on any political donations, if we are going to have political donations in the first place; £100,000 seems rather generous to me—we should bring that down.

Briefly, I want to talk about the influence of lobbying. This came as a slight shock to me. I became a politician having been a medic all my life. If we ever had any influence from the pharmaceutical companies, we totally ignored that evidence, yet as politicians we allow lobbyists to come and talk to us. I was on a platform talking about obesity, and there was even someone from Sainsbury’s supermarket on the platform. Is it right that we allow people to influence our policy in that way?

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The hon. Member hits on an important point. It is surely up to us all to judge the value of what we are told by any particular lobbyist. We listen to constituents who lobby us all the time, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. What is bad is the lack of transparency about lobbying, not just of parliamentarians but of officials in government. Does he agree that a much more open and transparency register of lobbyists would be a big step forward?

[Dr Opher]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point. The lack of transparency is a key issue. In 2023, oil and gas lobbyists spoke to Tory MPs on average 1.4 times per day, so is it really any wonder that they are now stepping back from their commitment to net zero? We must stop that sort of influence in Parliament. We must take the evidence and respond in the right way.

We must restore trust in politics and reform how donations are made. We should look at the whole system of party funding and restore faith in politics.