Political Parties: Expenditure Limits

Lord Ashton of Hyde Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

[Inaudible.]

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

The noble Baroness is muted at the moment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

Apologies, my Lords—I will try again. In recent general elections, the wealthiest and largest political parties have used their very generous national party spending limits—in 2019, it was close to £19 million—to cover a variety of non-national costs, including targeting a lot of individual constituencies with generic leaflets, billboards, et cetera. Independent candidates and smaller rising parties do not have this additional spending option. Will the Government be open to consider rebalancing the two types of spending limit in the interests of fairness as well as to prevent swing seats being barraged with messaging? Will they put far tighter limits on individual contributions to political fundraising, so that we do not all get the politics a few people pay for directed towards a small percentage of the population?