Trade Union Political Funds and Political Party Funding

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and to the outstanding clerking that we on the committee had the benefit of. The noble Lord showed great clarity of thinking, a good-humoured approach and was able to reduce the difficult problem we had been set to a series of logical steps. Powerful evidence sessions were arranged and we were able to land on those steps. I do not belittle the contribution of the other members of the committee. Everyone contributed. We witnessed the great charm of the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, in eliciting evidence and the scholarship of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. We will hear from more of my fellow committee members later but the report shows balance and is very fair.

The noble Lord, Lord Burns, has summarised matters carefully and fully. I agree with every word he said, as I do with those of the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. However, I wish to add a little additional colour around some of the evidence sessions. There were three neutral sets of evidence concerning the effect of Clause 10 on union political fund participant numbers. These were: the lessons of history from 1927; the similar evidence of Northern Ireland; and the very interesting evidence of the Government’s own behavioural insights team, which so starkly rebutted the impact assessment.

The politically influenced evidence, which came largely in the evidence sessions from people who supported the Labour Party, was delivered by people of great passion and integrity, yet the numbers that they foresaw the participant percentages falling to were, for me, unbelievably low. I put that down simply to fear. They feared an existential threat, or certainly a threat of very major damage, occurring to the party they love. I know from the insurance industry that fear is not at all equal to the probability of damage. Therefore, I was able to square the evidence that they gave on that basis.

I turn to the Kelly report, while sticking with the theme of fear—the first report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life that has not been fully accepted by people of all descriptions. We had a very good evidence session with the noble Lord, Lord Bew, and Sir Christopher Kelly, and discussed what was termed “the balance of pain”—that is, the pain that would be felt by the Labour Party in having to make changes to the way in which it got its money, and that felt by the other parties, which essentially get most of their money from large political donors. I think that is almost a balance of fear; again, it is a fear of the unknown. We heard evidence from Nick Clegg MP on his complete failure to convene any form of discussions likely to produce any results in the aftermath of the Kelly report.

We have just heard that public opinion is strongly in favour of adopting some changes in party-political funding. Therefore, it is no surprise that the three main manifestos—I shall read out a line from each—were so keen to promote change in the party-political funding arena. Looking at the annunciator, I note that the words,

“and Political Party Funding Committee”,

are included in the committee’s title. Therefore, it is entirely right that I should cite these manifestos. The Conservative Party manifesto stated:

“We will continue to seek agreement on a comprehensive package of party funding reform”.

The Labour Party manifesto said:

“We remain committed to reform of political party funding and taking the big money out of politics”.

The Liberal Democrats said that they would:

“Take big money out of politics by capping donations”,

and introduce,

“wider reforms to party funding along the lines of the 2011 report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life”.

I feel, therefore, the time has come to grasp the nettle. In fact, there is no better time to do it because these three manifesto commitments are very similar in their vow to the Smith commission agreement. All three parties have given this undertaking to the electorate. It is incumbent on those parties now to make progress in this area, have meaningful discussions and not just “dance a dance”. The balance of fear that I have mentioned is well understood. There is certainly no appetite for creating an existential problem for any of the three parties. The interim arrangements on party funding would take that into account. It is fair to ask the Minister when the Government intend to make good their manifesto promise in this regard.

I, too, note that we had 33 pages in our main report, 32 of which were wholly agreed; just the last half page was not. For the avoidance of doubt, I was in favour of option A on the opting in of existing participants only when a comprehensive reform package was in place. I commend the report to the House for its balance and thoroughly practical nature. The committee has reached agreement. We now seek the agreement of the House, and then of the Government.