Business of the House

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Dreadful!

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

We have made a degree of progress this week on taking unfortunate money out of politics. Now we need to take the next step and clean up the laundromat of British political party funding. In the wake of the Intelligence and Security Committee report on Russia last year, will the Lord President confirm that no British political party should be taking cash from suspicious fortunes made in Russia and Uzbekistan? Can we have a debate in Government time as soon as possible to crystallise a cross-party consensus on this critical topic?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There are very clear rules on how money may be taken by political parties, and all the political parties have a strong obligation to abide by them and to ensure that money is declared properly to the Electoral Commission. Ultimately, there will be a choice: whether we wish to have parties funded privately or to put a greater burden on the taxpayer. I would be very reluctant to put any further burdens on taxpayers; they have to bear enough already. I might even remind the right hon. Gentleman of a comment he made some years ago about the shortage of funds.