Electoral Administration Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, for moving the amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Dubs. He is unavoidably detained on something important. I shall not go into the detail of how policy development grants work because noble Lords are fully aware of them, particularly those who have been affected in the way indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis. As I said in Grand Committee, although we have been working with the Electoral Commission, we have not been to find a workable scheme that would deliver a fair and equitable sharing of resources. I shall reiterate what I said then. The policy development grant scheme will be considered in the review by Sir Hayden Phillips. That review will look at the broader and more important questions about political party funding, and its terms of reference include the requirement,"““to examine the case for state funding and to consider the transparency of party funding””." The policy development grant scheme will therefore be included in the overall context of Sir Hayden’s review, and the terms of reference further state that it will,"““work closely with stakeholders, including especially the political parties””." I know that Sir Hayden has it in mind to contact in the very near future the political parties represented at Westminster, the European Parliament and the devolved authorities. I encourage noble Lords themselves to make contact with Sir Hayden and to become fully involved in the review, particularly on this important matter. Sir Hayden has been asked to report to the Government by the end of December 2006 with recommendations for any changes to the current arrangements which, as far as possible, have been agreed between the political parties. I hope therefore that noble Lords will see a resolution on the issue before too long. On that basis, I hope too that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.