Trade Union Bill

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

I said earlier that I would not make many interventions but I was interrupted when I was speaking before dinner. I am not quite sure what procedure we are following here because I thought we were going to have the response to the previous debate after dinner. Are we having a collective here or something?

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

A composite.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

It is a composite. Right. Can I just make a couple of small points on this issue?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, perhaps I can just interrupt—I beg the forgiveness of the House. We are dealing with matters that were raised before dinner in the next group.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

So we are having a debate on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours? That is fine. That is what I was expecting; I just hoped that we were not missing the Minister’s reply.

We are in favour of examining all forms of reform of political donations. The only point I would like to make to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is that I am not quite sure how gift aid would work. Obviously there would be a huge advantage to the Conservative Party with its big donations and the big tax relief it could get on them. That would be a major problem because it would disadvantage the Labour Party and it would disadvantage us. Noble Lords may laugh, but I wondered why the noble Lord was supporting it. I know why. The Conservative Party has worked out that a 40% rebate on £20 million gives it £8 million and the Labour Party’s £15 million gives it £6 million, so the Conservative Party has an advantage of £2 million. These are just rough figures.