Political Parties (Funding and Expenditure) Bill [HL]

Lord Fraser of Corriegarth Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 10th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fraser of Corriegarth (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that I was treasurer of the Better Together campaign in Scotland during the recent referendum there. Every single party I can think of has been, if you like, insulted—Labour, Lib Dems, Tories, Green, DUP, Sinn Fein—except the Scottish nationalists. If we are talking about caps on experience, I would just point out that in the referendum, £1.5 million was raised by the Scottish nationalist yes campaign, of which £1 million came from a single couple. Therefore, two-thirds of the total contribution for the whole campaign, on an extremely important constitutional issue, came from two people. If we are talking about caps on donations, I believe it should certainly apply to referendums just as much as to elections.