Party Funding

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I have nothing to add to what I have said many times before. The hon. Lady talks about buying influence and buying policy. It was not the Conservative party that sat in Warwick and formed the Warwick agreement with the trade union movement; it was her party, year after year. It was not the Justice Secretary who said that he could not decide his policy until he had phoned up the trade union to receive instructions; it is the shadow Justice Secretary who was found out doing that. The hon. Lady should think about taking the beam out of her own party’s eye before she starts looking for motes in others’.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Given this weekend’s revelations and the way in which they have been received in the country, does the Minister really think it is credible that the people out there will think it acceptable for the Conservative party to investigate itself?

[Mr Maude]

The investigation will be conducted by a very distinguished senior lawyer who will—[Interruption.] I have to say again in response to the synthetic indignation from the Opposition Front Bench, particularly from the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher), who was the spokesman for the previous Prime Minister who presided over some of the worst scandals this country has ever seen, that we are not taking any lessons from him. He was in the Labour party in No. 10 when the leader of the Labour party appointed a former general secretary of the Labour party to conduct a so-called independent investigation into its donor scandal.