National Crime Agency Investigation: Javad Marandi

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I agree with the hon. Lady that it is vital that our elections remain safe and secure, but the Elections Act included a number of measures that further tightened up our law, not least the restriction on foreign third parties campaigning at elections, and the strengthening of the transparency framework in relation to political finance. The Act significantly strengthened the law in that area.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) on securing this urgent question on something we both have an established interest in. The Javad Marandi case shows that bad-faith actors find it too easy to buy access into the body politic, yet most of his donations were done through the official Conservative and Unionist party channels. Earlier this month, we saw painstaking investigation by Jim Fitzpatrick of openDemocracy, showing how shady so-called think tanks such as Our Scottish Future had the lowest possible financial transparency ranking, leaving them open to manipulation from unknown dark-money donors like the notorious Constitutional Research Council during the Brexit referendum. Can the Minister say how the Government are going to ensure that those think tanks and campaigning organisations, which have a clear political goal, comply with best practice and declare who their donors are?

[Chris Philp]

Organisations engaged in political campaigning are covered by the expanded remit of recent legislation—but when it comes to transparency of political donations, I must say the Scottish Nationalists have quite a cheek lecturing anyone else.