Political Parties: Funding

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs for coming to the House and making that Statement. But does he not share my feeling that it is ““here we go again””, with the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor touring the television studios all morning and turning up here after lunch to clear up another mess caused by the Prime Minister? That seems to be one role that the Lord Chancellor will never be able to abolish. This is a deeply dispiriting day, and the Prime Minister should hang his head in shame. I have sympathy for many of those caught up in this affair—sympathy for those who were asked—I repeat, asked—to give loans to Labour, then saw No. 10 deliberately leak their names to the media in an attempt to bounce the Appointments Commission. As a direct result, those people have faced criticism of the worst sort, in which the good that they have done has been lost in a storm of scandal. The culture of spin and leak that besmirches this Government, besmirches them, too. I have sympathy for those noble Lords in this House who legitimate and openly donated money to political parties in the past, but who came here by a lifetime of public achievement and service. Their names should not be dragged into this scandal.