Short Money

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Leader of the House to make a statement on the Government consultation on Short money.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose)]

I am happy to confirm that since we last discussed this topic on the day the House rose for recess, we have completed the steps I promised at the time. On Friday 12 February I tabled the statutory instrument required to change the allocations of policy development grants to fund political parties, in line with the recommended changes put forward by the independent Electoral Commission. Last Thursday the Deputy Leader of the House and I tabled a request for views about potential similar changes to Short money. I hope the House will therefore appreciate why I am responding to this urgent question.

The parallels between policy development grants and Short money—both forms of taxpayer funding for political parties—are strong and, since Short money is larger and more valuable than policy development grants, it seems sensible to take a similar approach. The request for views asks some important questions. For example, the cost of Short money has gone up by 50% since 2010, and will rise by a whopping 68% by the end of this Parliament if nothing is done. At a time when everybody else outside Westminster has had to tighten their belts, why should politicians expect to be treated differently, feathering their own nests at taxpayers’ expense?

The rises in Short money are linked to the retail prices index inflation every year, but benefits claimants get rises linked to the lower consumer prices index inflation each year, so how can any politician look their constituent in the eye and say that they deserve a bigger rise every year than someone who is looking for a job or is on a pension or living with a disability?

The rises in Short money are also linked to the number of votes cast at elections. That has contributed this year to an enormous 30% increase, from £7.25 million in 2014-15 to almost £9.5 million this year. How can that be justified when many vital public services are having to cope with cuts of 19%? Short money is notably untransparent. It is taxpayers’ money after all, but there is no requirement to publish details of how it is spent. There are, rightly, requirements, on the parallel policy development grants and on pretty much every other area of Government funding, too. How can it be right in the modern age for politicians to expect to be bunged a load of hard-earned taxpayers’ cash—more than £35 million in total since 2010 for the Labour party, for example—without at least explaining how it gets spent?

Finally, the distribution of Short money between parties throws up some pretty odd results. For example, UKIP gets £688,000 for its one MP, although the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) has, in an impressively principled stand, turned some of that down. The Greens, also with one MP, get less than a third of that. Clearly, it makes sense to ask whether that can be improved.

These important questions need to be answered. The request for views runs until 7 March so there is plenty of time for everyone on all sides of the House to submit their views and opinions, and there will be plenty of time for us to debate these issues here or in Westminster Hall if anyone wants to do so. We are already off to a flying start with this second urgent question, and I will take contributions from everybody here today in the spirit of constructive submissions and suggestions in answer to the questions that the request for views has raised.

[Chris Bryant]

That is all very well, but Short money has nothing to do with the Cabinet Office. It is House business, not Government business. The whole point is that it enables Parliament to do its business properly. The accounting officer is not the permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office, but the Clerk of the House. The Leader of the House should be here doing his job properly and answering questions.

Can this Minister confirm that any changes will have to be debated, and voted on, on the Floor of the House? Can he confirm that because this is House business, it will not be subject to a Government Whip? This is the shoddiest so-called consultation I have ever come across. It deliberately forgets to mention that Short money is linked to how many seats and how many votes all the Opposition parties got at a general election, so the main reason Short money has increased in 2015 is that this Government have a much smaller majority than the Labour Government or the coalition Government, and the Opposition parties got more seats and more votes than in previous Parliaments.

Can the Minister confirm that, contrary to what he says, this is not a 19% cut? With inflation, it is a 24% cut. How can that be right when the Chancellor has increased the cost of his political office to the taxpayer by 204%? Or is there one rule for the Opposition and quite another for the Government?

The Minister said last time that the cost and number of taxpayer-funded Tory special advisers—the only bit of this that he is responsible for—is coming down, but that is not true either, is it? Since the general election that figure has gone up, so will the Government be taking a 19% cut on 1 April? No, I do not suppose they will.

The consultation, published in the half-term recess—the Minister should be ashamed of himself—allows just 11 working days for responses, and then seems to intend to implement a decision less than three weeks later. Will that give the two Conservative-chaired Select Committees that have expressed an interest in doing inquiries time to complete those inquiries? I do not suppose it will. That is another affront to this House.

Fair-minded people will conclude that the Government are developing a nasty authoritarian streak, and that an overweening Executive wants to crush all opposition because they are afraid of scrutiny. When we were in government we trebled Short money and the Tories did not hesitate to bank £46 million, so we will not take any lessons from the Minister. When I was Deputy Leader of the House in 2009, some people suggested that we should cut Short money for the Conservative party because other Departments in Government were facing significant cuts. We said, “No, democracy is worth protecting.” This is not a consultation on cutting the cost of politics—we would welcome that. It is a pernicious ultimatum and the Government should withdraw it unless they are prepared to put Spads on the table as well. To quote the Minister, why should the Government be treated any differently from the Opposition? Feathering their own nest—that is what they are doing.

[John Penrose]

I am happy to reassure the hon. Gentleman that the cost of Spads, as I mentioned when we last met to discuss this, has fallen since the general election. The request for views is entirely clear about the various different causes of the rise in Short money, and the consultation asks for views and expressions of how it might be amended point by point, so the hon. Gentleman is quite wrong about how the request for views is done.

Even if no changes are made to some of the proposals in the request for views, the Labour party will still receive more funding in real terms than did the Conservative party in 2009-10. It will receive an estimated £11 million of taxpayers’ money over this Parliament. There will be no real reduction in cash terms; in fact, there will be a small increase in cash terms, even after a 19% cut, compared with 2014-15. [Interruption.]