Political Party Finance and the Electoral Commission

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, in thanking the noble Earl and congratulating him on introducing this debate. It is a timely and incredibly important subject. I speak as a veteran, at various stages in a long and chequered career, of engaging in cross-party talks on party funding.

The concern I have about where we are today is that the long-established convention on these matters of changing the rules on party funding—that they are pursued only after cross-party talks, with agreement being sought—seems to be being abandoned. The noble Earl made a powerful case for a much more comprehensive and simple approach to these matters, so it is a matter of regret and concern that the Government have chosen to pick a couple of cherries out of the Rycroft report and introduce them, at a relatively late stage, into a Bill already going through its legislative process. That is a breach of the approach which has been followed pretty rigorously.

I recall that, in the period after the 2005 election, when Sir Hayden Phillips—sadly, now the late Sir Hayden Phillips—was asked to undertake one of these reviews, Jack Straw and I, accompanied by the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, had comprehensive discussions, which sadly did not reach agreement. They did not reach agreement because the Labour Party had a concern that a cap on donations of £50,000 could not be applied to donations by trade unions. At that point, the whole deal that was being fashioned—which would have gone some way to re-establish trust and support in the system—fell down.

There is another concern here, which is the introduction of a retrospective element into what is apparently being proposed. There is a cap to be introduced retrospectively on donations from legitimate electors—people who are entitled to vote but who happen not to be living in this country. I query the whole principle of saying that some voters are more equal than others. If there is a concern about the right of people living overseas—the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, slightly raised this point—to have full rights in our Parliament and our democratic processes then that should be dealt with differently, but to say that for one particular aspect of participation in our parliamentary democracy they should be disadvantaged in this way seems plainly wrong. These matters should be treated very carefully indeed.

There was a very good reason, first set out by Sir Winston Churchill in the late 1940s, why parties should treat these matters very carefully. If a Government are seen to be using their position to advantage themselves and disadvantage their competitors, that can trigger a tit-for-tat approach, because no party has a lifetime hold on power. At various stages during the 2005 Parliament, and during discussions that took place subsequently in the coalition Government, the approach that Jack Straw and I took was that which the then Labour Party was strongly committed to. All of this was approached by seeking consensus wherever possible. I strongly urge the Minister to take this message back to his colleagues in the other place, because this is a dangerous path.