Donations to Political Parties

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, on obtaining this debate, although I am going to follow a substantially different tack. I should add that my first declaration in the register of interests in the House of Lords was a ticket to the rugby World Cup final in 2015 given to me by the referee.

I want to make two points. One is on—noble Lords will be aware that I have been pursuing this issue for a number of years—the funding of opinion polls, which are, in effect, campaigning. A few years ago, YouGov took on a poll and the Telegraph displayed it in full, but we were unable to establish who had actually funded it and the circumstances around it.

I have given notice to the Electoral Commission again that I intend to pursue it when we get to debate the legislation, which I understand has been tabled in the Commons in the past few minutes, but I could not get a copy of it before the debate started. That is one matter of concern, because effectively opinion polling is used as a substantial manner of campaigning.

The other item that I wish to raise is relevant in light of the events in politics this week. It is not in a general election but at least one potential candidate for the leadership of the Labour Party is supposed to have already a war chest of £1 million. Any campaign that relates to funding for a post in government or as Leader of the Opposition should be subject to the same requirements as election campaigning in general. At the last leadership election in the Tory Party, Robert Jenrick received £75,000 pounds from a tax haven abroad. I made it absolutely clear that I thought that that should be declared and treated in the same way as overseas funding, because it has a direct bearing on British politics. Those are the two items that I wished to raise.