Alun Cairns
Main Page: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)Department Debates - View all Alun Cairns's debates with the Leader of the House
(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Sir George Young
We are debating the Finance Bill again next week and I hope that there will be no repetition of this week’s inexplicable incident. The official Opposition failed to table an amendment in time on their flagship policy; they then refused to vote on an identical amendment tabled by another party, only to vote for some anodyne alternative. I hope that there will be no repetition of that embarrassment from the Opposition Front-Bench team.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
May we please have a debate on the funding of political parties? At a time of industrial action, it would be useful to tease out the influence that trade unions can have on some parties’ policies.
Sir George Young
As my hon. Friend knows, Sir Christopher Kelly and the Committee on Standards in Public Life are looking at the important issue of party funding. My own view is that it is unhealthy that one political party is dependent for about 87% of its funding on the trade unions.