Representation of the People Bill

Liam Byrne Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger]

That is exactly what I think, and every British citizen should be able—

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I believe that I heard the hon. Gentleman accuse a political party in the Chamber of a “criminal abuse of democracy”. Did I hear that correctly? Is that remark in order, or does the hon. Gentleman—I use that word loosely—now need to back up his allegation with some hard evidence?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am hoping that the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) will reconsider his words and withdraw them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)]

I, too, want to welcome the Bill; I think it has a lot of good measures. However, whether it becomes the watershed Bill that I think it could be depends on whether much of the debate we have heard tonight gets translated into successful amendments over the next couple of weeks.

We all have an ideal of democracy in this House, but we all know that democracy, too, is a system, and systems can be gamed, corrupted and undermined, not merely by force of arms, but by force of money: foreign money; dark money; money that is faceless, but has an agenda. That is the situation we have in this country today because we have allowed the activities of shell companies, alka-seltzer companies and unincorporated associations, with about £1 in every £10 coming into political parties now from some kind of dark source. All of this is overseen by a National Crime Agency without the resources to do the job and an Electoral Commission without the powers to do the job.

There are five changes that need to be made to the text of the Bill before us tonight. The first, as many have said, is on media systems. It is ridiculous that I can set up a trust in Dubai that is owned by a company registered in the British Virgin Islands and chuck tens of millions of pounds into a British TV station, which can then go on to pay politicians in this House. There are no rules and balances on that, which is ridiculous and needs to end.

Secondly, as many people have said, we need to ban cryptocurrency. We know that cryptocurrency is the vehicle of choice for the Russian intelligence services moving money into the bank accounts of western proxies. For a long time, the Russian intelligence services have had a strategy of what we might call “poodles on rubles”. Right now, we know they are moving about $30 million a year. We have to ensure that what has happened in Moldova does not happen in countries like ours. Banning cryptocurrency altogether—until, perhaps, one day in the future, the Electoral Commission has the power to police it—might be a good idea.

Thirdly, we have to ensure that only profits earned from British companies can be used for electoral donations. It is ridiculous that an individual like Christopher Harborne can take $70 million in Tether tokens before then making about £23 million-worth of donations into British political parties, with none of us in this House having any idea where that money has come from.

Fourthly, we need to ensure that the powers of the Electoral Commission have been transformed so that it has the power to initiate investigations before it has all the evidence it needs. At the moment, it needs to initiate an investigation before it can get the evidence, which is very difficult to do.

Finally, we need to ensure that there is a proper gateway to allow the Electoral Commission to share information with the National Crime Agency.

Our enemies are undermining us now not just by dropping bombs through the ceiling, but by trying to destroy our foundations. Regulating political finance is one of the ways we can stop that now.

Representation of the People Bill

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi]

The Representation of the People Bill is central to our plan for fixing politics. Every one of us in this House has a responsibility to show the value of participating in our elections, but the reality is that too many people have lost faith in politics, and we must address the reasons for that. At the heart of this must come measures to reassure the public that the elections they are voting in are fair and free from foreign interference. We must stand against the unprecedented tide of abuse faced by those who put themselves forward to represent their communities.

The Bill will secure our elections against those who threaten them, protect those who participate, ensure that our democracy remains open and accessible to legitimate voters, and strengthen, preserve and modernise our elections for the next generation. It delivers our 2025 strategy for modern and secure elections. It takes forward the recommendations of the Rycroft review and meets our manifesto commitments. It sets the foundations for elections that are fairer and a democracy that is stronger.

Before I speak to the Government amendments tabled in the name of my right hon. Friend Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, I thank those who participated in the passage of the Bill. I pay particular tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), for her tireless work in getting the Bill to this stage.

Cryptoassets have come up in our debates. Cryptoasset transactions create a new and clear route for untraceable money to enter our politics. These Government amendments therefore propose a ban on political donations made in cryptoassets, in line with the recommendations in the Rycroft review. The ban applies to donations of all values. The specific risk associated with foreign interference and crypto donations is not the same as the risk associated with donations made by bank transfers.

The ban will apply retrospectively. Any donations made in cryptoassets from 25 March 2026 must be returned within 30 days following the commencement of these provisions. This is to prevent malign actors taking advantage of the advance notice of the ban. If recipients fail to comply, they risk enforcement action and, potentially, criminal liability. The Government intend to end the ban once the Electoral Commission and Parliament are satisfied that the regulatory environment around cryptoassets is robust enough to protect the integrity of our political finance from foreign interference. Ending the ban will therefore require further legislation.

We are also amending the definition of “donation” to include arrangements in which a property is used to pay for the expenses of a recipient.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I offer my warmest congratulations to her on her appointment to the role; she will be a brilliant Minister. She will know that many in this House welcome the update to the legislation proposed by Ministers to ban cryptoassets, but she will also know that the measures that have been proposed by His Majesty’s Government do not go far enough. In particular, they still permit money to be routed through crypto exchanges, turned into fiat and then donated on. Secondly, they still permit donations through things like memecoins. Will she look at the measures in new clause 34, which is supported by 51 Members of this House, so that over the passage of this Bill through this House and the other place, we can ensure that it is as tight and as tough as possible?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that important and valuable contribution. It is right that a number of amendments are seeking to limit donations originating from cryptoassets. We agree that the anonymity of crypto transactions creates a worrying route for illicit actors to channel money into our politics. This is an area that the Government are definitely keen to continue to review, ensuring that we end any unintended loopholes that may still arise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liam Byrne]

Let me start with a word of thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), who is not in her place, who said quite rightly that an awful lot has changed since the Bill was first introduced to this House. Indeed, a lot has been revealed over the course of the summer. In fact, reporting in The Times, The Sunday Times, the Financial Times, The Guardian and Byline Times has now revealed 37 different questions around the finances of the Reform party, but no doubt we will find there is an innocent explanation for all of it.

No doubt there is an innocent explanation for why Mr George Cottrell passed $2 million through US-based crypto exchanges just a day or two before he moved the money to his mother, who then went on to make big donations to Reform. No doubt we will learn that Mr Cottrell was in fact on the electoral register when that money was passed. No doubt we will discover that his mother, Fiona Cottrell, declared and did not disguise the fact that the money had ultimately come from her son. No doubt there will be an innocent explanation for why loans to Reform through Britain Means Business were reclassified as donations, even though the party treasurer was not told about that. No doubt there will be an innocent explanation for why the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who—surprise, surprise—is not in his place, did not declare a £5 million donation before he was elected to this place and went off to lobby the Governor of the Bank of England on behalf of his cryptocurrency allies. No doubt it is a complete coincidence that the man who has given Reform half of its fortune—more than £25 million—made his fortune in the crypto industry.

No doubt there is an innocent explanation for all of that. I very much hope that absolutely no offences have been committed. No doubt there is an innocent explanation for all of it—and no doubt it will stink to high heaven to the British public.

I very much hope that all of that has been above the law, but that is not the test for political finance regulation in this country. It is not enough to be above the law; conduct must be above suspicion. And right now, the conduct of political finance in this country is not above suspicion. That is why the measures in this Bill are needed, and that is why it will be madness if we do not use this Bill to once and for all eliminate not just cryptocurrency donations, but the cryptocurrency system from British politics.

I welcome the moves that the Minister has made and the commitment she has made at the Dispatch Box this afternoon to continue to listen to the debate and ensure that the rules under the Bill are as tight as possible. However, the revelations in the newspapers over the summer underline why we must be as hard and as tough as possible. The truth is that right now, the amendments that the Government have tabled to the Bill are full of holes. Under those rules, it would still be possible to move money through digital tokens; it would still be possible to move money through memecoins like the $BRITAIN token; and it would still be possible to aggregate it, convert it into conventional currency and then donate it, for example, to Restore Britain.

We know that this is not some speculative feature of the system. We know that donations that have gone to Reform have been routed through cryptocurrency exchanges like Radom. Now, I have nothing against Radom; it is clearly wholly committed to transparency, which is why it has moved its domicile from Poland to the Cook Islands—that beacon of transparency. With risks like that multiplying, why on earth would we leave loopholes open?

The effect of new clause 34 would be to ban off-ramping, ban new forms of digital currency transactions and ban memecoins, which are exactly the kind of measures that Ministers now need to bring forward. If we want to take the crypto system out of political finance, this is what we need to do.

The final point I want to make is about a larger hole in the Bill, which I hope we will square up to over the course of this debate. There are now Members of this House who are making more out of ad share revenue than they are from their salary. If Elon Musk decided to write a cheque to a political party, under the terms of this Bill it would be outlawed. If he decided to retweet something and generate tens of thousands of pounds in ad share revenue, it would be allowed.

We have got to recognise that over the last five years £200 million has been assembled to build a media political complex on behalf of a party that thinks there is a problem with foreigners but not with foreign money. Frankly, it is time that we eliminated that kind of politics, argument and system from our country.

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

I join others in warmly welcoming the Democracy Minister to her place. I know that the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee will miss her excellent chairing, but it is great to have such a strong ally on these issues in Government.

We have returned to this place after a summer when barely a day has gone by without another political funding scandal on the front pages. As the previous speaker referred to, there have been accusations of impermissible foreign donations, undeclared donations, undeclared gifts, conflicts of interest, undeclared assets, foreign interference and more.

I doubt that anyone in this House could say with confidence that we currently have the right safeguards in place to ensure that dodgy money is kept out of our politics and that sufficient transparency is in place so that the public can judge whether a politician is acting in their interests or in the interests of foreign-based billionaires. That is why this Bill is so important and why so many of the measures in it are welcome.

I am delighted that following the Rycroft review there are amendments to strengthen the Bill, including: the cap on donations from overseas electors; the new residency test to close the potential loophole of people coming back to meddle in our politics; the moratorium on crypto, which will ensure that companies can only donate up to the value of their post-tax profits; and the swift recent action we have seen to look at lower caps on how much parties and candidates can spend during regulated periods. These are all really welcome steps that will help to limit the influence of big money and curb foreign influence.

We have to be alive, though, to the constantly evolving nature of this threat and to ensure that our electoral traditions are not open to abuse. In that spirit, I have a couple of suggestions. I do hope that in the Electoral Commission’s review of spending limits, per the Government amendment, it could also be asked to look at whether the whole concept of the long and short campaign is working to keep spending in check. Candidates have already been selected by parties for the next general election, and many more will be in place by the end of this year, but the long campaign regulated period does not kick in until 4 February 2029. That means, in many cases, more than two years of further uncapped spending, with declaration of interest rules only formally in place for the year before an MP is elected and nothing for candidates who do not win.

This is really important because we know that the reality of modern politics is that campaigning never switches off. I am glad that in this country we have avoided the money-pit of TV advertising that the United States has, but social media means that vast sums of hard-to-trace money can be spent promoting a candidate or party outside of these regulated periods. I am fully supportive of the Government’s intention to bring down the spending cap, and I think that a thorough look at these regulated periods would help to deliver that goal and ensure that capping spending works permanently, not just in those limited periods.

I am also glad that the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and the Minister have been clear that this Bill is the start of the political reform agenda and not the end. Unfortunately, many of these big money interests and foreign states with malign intent are very good at finding loopholes and working around our laws, and they will continue to do that and adapt once these new laws are enforced. To avoid that risk, the Electoral Commission could also look at donation levels that are currently uncapped to ensure a further check on big money interests.

I welcome the Democracy Minister’s positive engagement on this topic, and I hope that there may be a way to use this Bill to review that issue and build consensus while ensuring that we do not have to wait for a further legislative route in this Parliament, which we all know would be challenging. In that spirit, we do not need legislation to talk about the national commission—we could do that immediately.

As I said, I hope the Bill is the start of the new Administration’s political reform effort and not the end. We all know the context, with plummeting trust, the influence of big money and the fact that many of our voters feel that their politicians are serving not them but other interests. I know that the Minister is committed to going as far as possible. The Bill is in really good shape—it has been strengthened—and I hope that in the summing up from the Dispatch Box we might hear about next steps to take it that little bit further.