Labour Together and APCO Worldwide: Cabinet Office Review Debate
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Andy McDonald
Main Page: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)Department Debates - View all Andy McDonald's debates with the Cabinet Office
Labour Together and APCO Worldwide: Cabinet Office Review
Andy McDonald Excerpts(1 day, 12 hours ago)
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Darren Jones
As I have said to the House, individual donations will be declared in line with the rules in the normal way. It is for those individuals to decide what they do with those donations.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)
This is truly a sordid affair. The Minister speaks of receiving funds from Labour Together to work on policy; I will just remind him that when we sat on the Opposition Benches, many of us were quite content with the support we received from the trade union movement and were proud to declare it as socialists.
On Labour Together and its funding basis, it seems clear that the former chief of staff in Downing Street was content with not declaring, safe in the knowledge that the Electoral Commission’s powers were very limited and that a fine of £16,000—in the context of £730,000 of moneys coming into the system—was simply the cost of doing business. Can the Minister assure me that Sir Laurie Magnus will look at the funding structure and consider whether we need to revisit the ways in which people can be penalised for such egregious transgressions and flagrant disregard for doing business properly? To my mind, these individuals should, just as we as ask directors to be individually responsible, bear personal responsibility in these circumstances.