"My Lords, I particularly welcome the suggestion that the noble Lord, Lord Mott, made. The ideal way to fund political parties is a large number of donations from your voters and your members. That is what my party has largely relied on. We lack large donors, except under exceptional circumstances, …..." Lord Wallace of Saltaire - View Speech
"My Lords, we on these Benches welcome the degree of transparency that is happening over the Mandelson appointment. We stress as strongly as we can that the maximum amount of transparency is now needed to restore public confidence and trust. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, mentioned that events have moved …..." Lord Wallace of Saltaire - View Speech
"My Lords, can we be assured that the police are now fully supportive of preventing intimidation? I do my politics in Bradford where there has been quite active intimidation of candidates. I recall a conversation with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in a previous election campaign precisely about the reluctance …..." Lord Wallace of Saltaire - View Speech
"My Lords, my amendment and the others in this group all stem from a degree of unease, in particular about Clause 60 but also generally about the ethos of this Bill towards local democracy, local representation and local participation. Clause 60 talks about
"My Lords, might I ask the noble Lord a question about which areas are not parishes? My strong impression is that the unparished areas in Britain are, by and large, poorer inner-city areas —those areas that are most disengaged and disillusioned with politics. If that is the case, it ought …..." Lord Wallace of Saltaire - View Speech
"I apologise for intervening, but it is not just about legitimacy—it is also that local areas occasionally want to pay for local amenities that the large unitary does not want to pay for. Shipley, in which Saltaire is based, now has a town council because Bradford decided that it could …..." Lord Wallace of Saltaire - View Speech
"My Lords, my unease has not been lessened by the Minister’s answers, and I suspect that others will feel the same way.
The Minister says that they do not want to impose a single model. I thought that this Bill was about imposing a single model on the governance of …..." Lord Wallace of Saltaire - View Speech
"We need to recognise where we are. If we want mayors to have public acceptance and credibility, they had better not be elected on less than a quarter of the vote. If we have a five-party system, the opinion polls—my nerdy noble friend here does his best to educate me …..." Lord Wallace of Saltaire - View Speech
"My Lords, I will speak a little about the proposals to change to a supplementary vote. I have some memories of how this came to be, since I was involved between 1996 and 1998 in some of the discussions between the Liberal Democrats and the then Labour Government about voting …..." Lord Wallace of Saltaire - View Speech