Political Parties (Funding and Expenditure) Bill [HL]

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

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

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on securing a Second Reading for his Private Member’s Bill today, although with it being so late in the Session, as he alluded to, I suspect it will make no further progress, which is a matter of regret. I have repeatedly brought this issue to the attention of the Government and asked them to look at revisions to the procedures which would enable the Grand Committee to be used for Committee stages of some Private Members’ Bills, to enable quicker progress to be made than the snail’s pace at which they often move. Many of those Bills are sensible and it would be beneficial if they reached the statute book.

The noble Lord’s Bill addresses a number of issues that have been on the table for quite some time, and we have been unable to make any progress on them. These are important issues where updating the law would be beneficial. I do not necessarily agree with all the clauses of the Bill but it is moving in the right direction. The noble Lord made an important point in respect of referendums, and I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Corriegarth, brought the SNP in, as all parties have now had issues aired in this debate.

I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, is going to say that the Government cannot impose consensus on political parties but that they are open to debate and dialogue. That is fine as far as it goes, but equally the Government are drawn from a political party, so they have more interest in this matter than that statement would imply. I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that parties should get round the table to seek agreement on all these matters.

Prior to the election of the Labour Government in 1997 there was in effect no legislation in respect of donations to political parties, the regulation of political parties or the regulation of national campaign expenditure. The Labour Government asked the Committee on Standards in Public Life to look into these areas, and out of that we got back what became the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, now known as PPERA. Other legislation followed over the Government’s term of office to deal with a variety of issues including loans to political parties, postal voting and individual electoral registration.

Seeking agreement among the parties was, and should be, a high priority, and for me that is the way to proceed. Since then that has not always been the case, and you only have to look at the decision to speed up IER after 2010, the reduction in the number of parliamentary seats by 50 and the curtailing of the boundary review inquiry process. At the same time, the increase in the number of Members of this House by the previous Prime Minister compared to the number of appointments his predecessors made, be they Labour or Conservative Prime Ministers, raised a few eyebrows to say the least.

The noble Lord, Lord Bew, was right when he spoke about the need for action and reviews with respect to the funding of political parties. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made similar points. It is important that any changes that take place do not unfairly penalise or give advantage to a political party. The history of my own party, the Labour Party, is based in the trade union movement. It was formed on 27 February 1900 in Farringdon Road, and elected its first two MPs that same year. We know of Keir Hardie, but the other MP’s name, Richard Bell, has disappeared into history. He was elected for Derby, and there has been a Labour MP in Derby ever since. But a first mention of Labour in terms of a candidate came in 1870, when a man called George Odger stood as the Liberal-Labour candidate in the Southwark by-election. He was described as an:

“English radical agitator of humble origins”—


someone I would have liked if I had had a chance to meet him.

Political parties and candidates for election should start from as level a playing field as possible, with any unfair bias in the law eliminated. That is not to say that a party or candidate may not have advantages. They may have a better candidate or more fertile ground from which they are seeking election. They may have run a better campaign or raised more money, or they may have more party workers.

The Bill itself builds on PPERA and states clearly what a registered political party is. I have no objection in principle to setting a limit on the size of donations that can be made to a political party, though I would probably want to explore the figures and dates in the Bill to see if they are the correct ones. I welcome the proposals to treat affiliation fees as individual donations, subject to satisfying certain conditions. I have no problem with exploring changes to the way that political parties receive public funding, and if we are going to implement any sort of change in respect of donations then serious consideration is going to have to be given to increasing the amount of public funding and to changing the way in which that funding is made. However, I am a bit nervous about any mention of the words “registered supporters”, and I am sure noble Lords will be fully aware why that is the case. In respect of expenditure for party-political purposes, that whole area needs to be revised and the sooner that happens the better.

Clause 23 concerns the functions of the Electoral Commission. I am of the view that the Committee on Standards in Public Life, led by the noble Lord, Lord Bew, should be invited by the Government to take a detailed look at the commission and its functions. It has been in existence since 2000 and been reviewed only once in that period. I think the time has come for that review to be done again. The noble Lord, Lord True, made important points in this respect. I say this as a former member of the Electoral Commission. There are many good commissioners there and excellent staff, and I have huge respect for them. They work as hard as they can to deal with the issues within—and this is the important point—the powers that Parliament has given them. So I very much support a review of its functions and hope that something can be done to get this under way sooner rather than later.

The noble Lord, Lord Bew, also made compelling points about the fact that donations to political parties in Northern Ireland are still secret. That needs serious review. Now is the time to make those donations public. We also need a consolidation Act to get the law in quite a specialised area into one place so that it is easier to understand for practitioners, candidates, party workers and the general public.

I will leave my remarks there. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for enabling us to raise these issues today. This has been a very good debate and I look forward to the Minister’s response.