High Peak Liberal Democrats

Some progress on party funding reform – comments please!

The adage "if you want to keep something secret, say it in the House of Commons" certainly extends to the Lords on Fridays, when Private Members Bills are taken.

However, our team made significant progress last week in pushing the government to take seriously their own manifesto commitment "to continue to seek agreement on a comprehensive package of party funding reform". We have been plugging away at this by whatever means possible, including by initiating a special Select Committee on party funding reform last year, and by introducing my Political Parties (Funding and Expenditure) Bill last week. I opened the debate, and Chris Rennard and Ian Wrigglesworth both spoke too. We received support also from Labour Peer Larry Whitty, and from the Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Paul Bew.

For decades, Lib Dems have sought a cap on individual donations - to limit the auction of influence and access to government and senior political figures which now takes place. In return, a limited element of public funding - linked to support in the country - would be needed to ensure the parties could continue their campaigning.

The trade off is for each citizen to contribute perhaps fifty or sixty pence per year, giving each one an equal influence, and stopping Prime Ministers from charging £250,000 for a ticket to dinner. This need not involve a net increase in spending on politics, nor a net increase in tax, since there are good ways - as Nick Clegg made clear in recent evidence (pdf) to a Lords Select Committee - to reallocate existing spending on political parties and advertising.

Meanwhile, readers will have noticed the significant abuses of the election expenditure limits which Michael Crick and others have been exposing on Channel 4. Some of these are under police investigation, and we will find out in due course whether any cases get to court. However, in some instances, candidates, parties and their agents will be judged not to have committed any offence even if the spirit of the law appears to have been breached. When I first standing for election, my agent and I were scared stiff of a potential jail sentence if the expenditure limits at constituency level were breached. Now, 'national' or so-called 'party' expenditure limits permit a huge amount of extra campaigning, all with the clear aim of influencing constituency level results.

The Minister, Lord (George) Young, has been debating these and other constitutional issues with me for some 57 years. He agreed on Friday to setup a cross-party discussion with the Minister for the Constitution, Chris Skidmore, to see if we could "break the logjam", by agreeing some "incremental" measures for reform. This may not be the radical, comprehensive package we Lib Dems would want but it does provide a chance to examine what "increments" the government might consider making in the meantime. Revisiting the rules on expenditure could surely be a starting point.

Our constitutional affairs team will be discussing what to make our priorities for the discussion this week, so please do leave your experiences of fighting elections and feedback on priorities in the comments section.

* Paul Tyler is the Liberal Democrat spokesman in the Lords on constitutional reform issues

Comments on Some progress on party funding reform - comments please!

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