Electoral Administration Bill

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman that someone who donates to a political party should not as a result be barred from being in the other House. That would clearly be nonsense. People have the right to express their political views in their own way and there is no bar on appointing a donor to the other place. People are appointed to the other place on merit. I hope that hon. Members in this place accept that. [Interruption.] Noises off from the Liberal Democrats ought to be kept a lot quieter, given their own situation. They have no right to pretend to be any better than any other party in the House in dealing with these matters. The hon. Gentleman mentioned his concern about soft money, which is something that we have to look at. Later, I shall speak about issues relating to candidates’ expenses, where such money sometimes appears. We have views on how we might make progress in that respect. The new regime will apply not only to the political parties, but to individual members of political parties, their associations and holders of relevant elective office. The amendments also make provision for an order-making power to extend the loans regime to third parties during national election campaigns, permitted participants at referendums and election candidates in parliamentary, local government and London assembly elections. An order-making power to extend the loans regime to Gibraltar during European elections has also been provided for, mirroring once again the approach taken in respect of donations. We have also considered in the amendments the most appropriate means of extending the provisions to Northern Ireland. The House will know that the donations regime has been disapplied in Northern Ireland since 2000 by orders made under PPERA. However, the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill that has recently been debated in this place and is now before the House of Lords contains provisions that mean that the disapplication of the regime will expire on 31 October 2007. Thereafter, the donations regime will apply in Northern Ireland, with both temporary and permanent modifications. An order-making power will allow the loans regime to be modified as it applies in Northern Ireland in a way that allows it to mirror the approach to be adopted in relation to donations as provided for in the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. The measures also bring about a number of consequential amendments to PPERA to reflect the introduction of the new regime for regulated transactions and to tie the two regimes together. The changes include an amendment to section 3 of PPERA so that those people who have made loans to political parties are excluded from being eligible to be electoral commissioners, reflecting the regime that currently applies to donations. Similarly, the amendments establish that an electoral commissioner shall cease to hold office if he is named as a participant in the register of recordable transactions—that is, if he gives a loan or other donation to a political party. In accordance with the commitment that I gave the House 20 March, the amendments represent a comprehensive package of measures to make it compulsory for political parties to disclose any loans that they receive. Our intention has been to achieve as great a transparency for loans made to political parties as applies to donations. We believe that the measures now provide a robust and workable framework to ensure greater transparency in respect of significant financial benefits afforded to political parties, members of political parties and holders of relevant elective office. I commend them to the House.